


you feed off hurting me

by oddeyejinsol



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Killing Eve AU, Minor Character Death, Minor Graphic Violence, assassin lip, detective yves, rated M FOR MURDER
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-01-23 03:17:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21313294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddeyejinsol/pseuds/oddeyejinsol
Summary: “What do you want from me?” Yves asks, and it’s supposed to be demanding but it comes out rather breathy.Lip tilts her head, watches Yves through her eyelashes. “What would you let me have?”(or; killing yves)
Relationships: Ha Sooyoung | Yves/Kim Jungeun | Kim Lip
Comments: 75
Kudos: 288





	1. seek and i find / nowhere to run / nowhere to hide

**Author's Note:**

> ive been talking abt this killing yves au forever and here it finally is! warnings for minor graphic violence, minor character death, and overall adult themes. this is based off of killing eve but only loosely, i definitely use my artistic license a lot here lmao so you dont have to have seen the show to read this!

**S E O U L**

“ _ Cet oiseau sans bec … tu danse …” _

The singer’s rich voice floats through the grand ballroom, swelling above the chatter of the guests. It’s the birthday party of one Lee Seungri, one of the many rich and elite, and guests from around the world have been flown out to Seoul to celebrate. Wine is flowing as well as conversation and music, and everyone seems to be having a good time. Except for the man of the hour himself, who’s already tired of money-hungry businessmen trying to brownnose their way into his inner circle.

Bored, his eyes scan the room for the hundredth time, but this time they stop on a woman he’s certain he’s never seen before. Surely he would remember someone this breathtakingly beautiful. Her hair is long and blonde, perfectly complementing the red wrap dress that hugs her body sinfully.

The man he’s talking to — whose name he definitely forgot as soon as they were introduced — notices his distracted gaze and chuckles. “A friend of yours?” he asks conspiratorially, like he and Seungri are buddies.

Seungri shakes his head. “No, actually … I’m not even sure she’s on the guestlist. Excuse me, friend.” He sets his drink aside on the table and leaves without a second glance back at his companion, making a beeline for the woman at the other end of the room.

It takes him quite a while to get there, since people keep stopping him on the way to wish him a happy birthday and kiss his ass a little. She’s still there when he sidles up beside her, peering sideways at him over the curve of her glass.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he says, sticking out a hand. “I’m Seungri.” He’s sort of a stickler about his strict invite-only parties, so he definitely isn’t treating her the way he would treat any other party crasher, but what can he say? He’s never had a party crasher who looked like  _ this. _

She places her small hand in his palm, shaking it delicately. “I’m Lip.”

“Lip?” he asks, his eyes automatically darting to her mouth. It’s a pretty rosebud shape, painted the same blood-red as her dress, and it parts in a glistening smile as he looks at her.

“If I told you my real name I’d have to kill you,” she says playfully, taking another sip of her drink. Her lipstick stains the glass in a perfect kiss mark.

“How did you even get in here?” he chuckles, already taken by her. “Are you someone’s plus-one?”

“No. I’m all alone,” she says with a mock pout. “But I’m here for you, actually.”

“For me?” he says, his eyebrows raised. Then, he thinks about the scenario: a beautiful girl, dressed this provocatively, openly flirting with him? It’s too good to be true.

“Did one of my friends bring you here for me?” he asks, dropping his voice.

Her eyes glimmer and she nods, pressing her finger to her lips in a  _ shush  _ gesture. “That’s right. I’m your birthday present,” she says, twirling around to show off her dress.

He grins, wrapping an arm around her waist. “When do I get to unwrap it?”

“How about right now?” she counters, stepping closer.

“I have to give a speech in a half hour,” he says, looking around the room.

“It won’t take that long. I promise,” she purrs, and really, how can he say no to that?

He doesn’t take her to his real bedroom, of course. There’s far too much sensitive information in there. Instead, he takes her to one of the many guest rooms in his house, one on the top floor where he knows they won’t be disturbed.

He’s on her as soon as the door closes behind her, attempting to kiss her, but she pushes him away with surprising force. He stumbles backwards, and his knees hit the edge of the bed, making him fall flat on his ass. He sits up, trying to get back to his feet, but she plants one of her heeled feet right in the center of his chest, stopping him.

“Did they pay extra for kinky shit?” he asks with a grin. 

She glares at him, cold, and it actually sends a shiver up his spine. He shuts up instinctively. “Take my shoe off,” she demands.

“Yes ma’am,” he says, clumsily beginning undo it.

“Careful with that strap!” she snaps, digging the heel harder into his chest. “These are Louboutins.”

He gulps, slowing down and meticulously unstrapping the shoe until it’s loose. 

“Now give it to me,” she commands, holding out one of her hands, her foot still on his chest. He hands her the shoe, squeaking embarrassingly when she grabs his hair and tilts his head back. She adjusts her grip, then, with precise aim and pressure, she stabs the stiletto heel right through his left eyeball. 

He doesn’t even make a sound, just twitches a few times before slumping over, limp. Lip yanks the shoe back out and sighs deeply when she sees that the heel is now covered in blood and brain matter. She probably should have worn the knock-offs.

Luckily, there’s a bathroom attached to this bedroom, so she’s able to wash off most of the nasty gunk and also take the time to wipe down Seungri’s body and anything else she may have touched. There’s still a little bit of blood she’s not quite able to get out of the sole, but it’s alright. They’re red bottoms anyway.

She whistles softly to herself as she walks through the halls of Seungri’s large home, peeking into rooms every now and then and picking up assorted expensive-looking things. She got the job done in record time, after all, and it’s still at least twenty minutes before Seungri’s speech is due to begin and people will start to look for him.

As she approaches a corner of the hallway, she hears footsteps coming from the other end. She’s surprised to hear someone else up here, in such a remote part of the house, so she flattens herself against the wall of the hallway. Then, just for fun, she sticks her foot out.

When the man turns the corner, he trips right over her ankle, falling flat on his face. Lip should take the opportunity to quickly slip away, but he’s clearly drunk off his ass and it’s too funny not to watch him groan and flail on the floor.

“Oh, careful there!” she says in mock surprise. He rolls over onto his back and blinks blearily at her, trying to get back up to his feet. Having had her fun already, she extends a hand and helps him get back up.

“Where is the bathroom?” he mutters, half to himself. “This house is way too big.”

“It’s on the fourth floor,” Lip lies.

“Thanks!” he says sincerely, then pauses. “Whoa. You’re very pretty.”

Lip smirks at the compliment, even though she already knows. He’s not bad looking, really, all big eyes and plush lips, and she always does get a little thrill after killing. She sizes him up, considering it, but then she hears the faint music from downstairs crescendo and fade out, followed by applause. The show is starting, but they don’t know the main act is missing.

So Lip just says “thank you” curtly before turning on her heel. She avoids the main lobby, instead choosing to use a back exit that she remembers from studying the floor plan of this house. She slips easily out of the house and into the night, allowing a genuine smile to play over her features as she celebrates her victory.

It’s a little chilly, and the dress is uncomfortable, but she doesn’t have time to go buy a change of clothes — her train leaves in less than an hour. Back to Paris, back to her apartment, where she knows there’ll be a sizeable wad of cash waiting for her on the kitchen counter.

She takes her wig off, finally letting her scalp breathe, and tosses it into a trashcan once she’s far away enough from the crime scene. It was eye-wateringly expensive, but it’s itchy and she’s tired of it. She can definitely just buy another, after the sum that today’s mission will get her. 

Lip whistles a triumphant melody, looking forward to the relaxing sleep she’ll get on the train. God, she loves her job.

**L O N D O N**

“I hate this job!”

Jinsol doesn’t even look up from her magazine as Yves bursts into the break room like a hurricane. “Last time I had to get up this early was for high school,” she continues ranting as she hangs up her jacket and frantically tries to smooth her hair down.

“And you’re still late,” Jinsol greets her, then protests, “hey!” when Yves grabs her croissant out of her hand.

“Sorry! Didn’t have time for breakfast and I don’t want my stomach growling in the middle of the meeting,” Yves says, munching on the pastry. “Wouldn’t want to embarrass myself in front of  _ the  _ Viian Wong.”

As expected, Jinsol’s eyes practically pop out of her head. “No fucking way!” she gasps, throwing her magazine down and leaning forward. “You’re gonna be in a meeting with Viian and you have the audacity to stand around eating when you’re already late? How did you even get this job?!”

“By being a genius,” Yves says smugly, finishing the last bite of her croissant and heading off in the direction of the meeting room.  _ But not smart enough to be anything other than an assistant _ , a cruel voice in her head says, but she shoves it aside. She’s already going to get shit from Doyoung from being late, she doesn’t need criticism from herself too.

She cracks the door open as quietly as she possibly can, trying to just slip in, but of course her boss pauses in the middle of his speech and fixes her with a cold glare. “Nice of you to join us, Yves,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Sorry, Mr. Kim,” she says demurely, slipping into the seat beside him and opening up her notepad. She finds that being quiet and obedient ensures the least possible amount of disdain from him. Her boss may be an excellent detective, but he’s a real dick.

“Viian, this is my  _ late  _ assistant, Yves. Yves, I’m sure you know Viian Wong,” Doyoung introduces, waving a hand between them. 

“It’s great to meet you,” Yves says sincerely, bowing her head. She’s so used to sitting in conference rooms full of men, and it’s very refreshing to see a fellow woman sitting in the seat across from her — especially a woman who works for MI6, a woman of power and influence. She has a pretty face and very sharp features, complemented by deep red hair. The bangs would look childish on anyone else, but she manages to make it work.

“Likewise,” Viian says politely. “Although I wish the circumstances were better.”

Doyoung nods grimly. “Let me catch you up, Yves. Lee Seungri was found murdered in his mansion in Seoul yesterday, at his birthday party.” Doyoung clicks his remote and a picture of Seungri’s body pops up onto the screen behind him, his eye ruptured and leaking gore. Everybody in the room flinches except Yves, who just leans forward, her brows knitting together.

“What could have caused that?” she wonders aloud. “Wouldn’t security be checking for weapons at the door?”

“Exactly,” Doyoung confirms. “They weren’t letting so much as a nail file go through. Autopsy results haven’t come back yet, but from first glance it looks to be a long, thin weapon — something like that would surely have been caught.”

“Maybe the killer snuck in? Bypassed security?” suggests one of the men Yves vaguely recognizes from Forensics.

“His guest list is always airtight,” Viian says with a shake of her head. “No way anybody was getting in unnoticed.”

“Maybe it was one of the plus-ones?” someone suggests, and a murmur of assent ripples through the room. Yves writes it down quickly in her notes.

“Maybe so,” Doyoung allows. “The issue is, however, almost everybody was accounted for at the time of his death; everyone was waiting for him in the main hall. He was supposed to be giving a speech.”

“And I’m guessing there’s no security camera footage from inside the house?” a bald man asks.

“None,” Doyoung says with a sigh.

“With the shit that he did, I wouldn’t want to be caught on tape, either,” Yves mutters to herself. Of course, Doyoung doesn’t let it slide, fixing her with a glare from across the table.

“Do you have something to say, Yves?”

“Um. Just wondering exactly where in the house he was found,” Yves bluffs.

Doyoung checks the notes in front of him. “One of the bedrooms on the top floor.”

“Oh!” Yves exclaims, the puzzle clicking into place. “Then it had to have been a woman, right?”

Everyone stares at her wordlessly, except for Viian, who pipes up unexpectedly. “What makes you say that?” she asks, her tone neutral.

Yves swallows, all eyes on her. “Well,” she begins, “the victim was a known womanizer, so nobody would have thought it out of place if he were to leave the party with a woman. Why else would he bring the killer up to one of his private bedrooms? He was also a misogynist, so he probably wouldn’t have perceived a woman to be a threat; I’m sure he wouldn’t let himself be alone and unguarded with another man, for example. He has far too many enemies for that.”

“Well, who says he went willingly?” Doyoung countered. “He could have been drugged.”

“There were no drugs in his system,” Viian replies. “No  _ sedative  _ drugs, I should say, because there really was quite the pharmacy in there.”

Yves snorts, earning her another glare from Doyoung and a mildly amused look from Viian. 

“Alright, so it’s looking like he went willingly,” Doyoung concedes, marking it down in his notes. “But there are no witnesses? Not a single soul noticed him leave his own birthday party?”

“Well, nobody would have noticed if he left with a woman,” Yves points out, unable to help herself. “In fact, people would probably turn a blind eye, not wanting to be involved in the type of shit — sorry, stuff — he gets up to.”

“Alright, Yves, enough baseless speculation,” Doyoung says, sounding bored. “There’s a difference between thinking it was a woman and wanting it to be a woman.”

Yves stays silent, but her cheeks flush an angry red, betraying her. She keeps her mouth shut for the rest of the meeting, her eyes glued to her notes while the detectives go around in circles trying to theorize what could have happened.

Eventually, Viian stands abruptly, signaling that the meeting is over. “We’ll wait for the autopsy results and get back to you, then. Thank you for your time.” Everybody nods and bows, and then the meeting disperses, the detectives falling into chatter as they pack away their files and leave the room one by one.

Doyoung sighs, taking off his glasses to clean them. “Alright, Yves, I suspect I’ll be in my office for the rest of the day trying to sort this shitstorm out, so bring me a coffee, will you?” Then he adds, not unkindly, “and get yourself some breakfast. You look like you might faint.”

He’s right — that half-eaten croissant was not cutting it at all. Muttering goodbye, she leaves hurriedly in the direction of the break room, where she knows Jinsol will be as usual. She often wonders whether Jinsol actually does any work at work, but she supposes she shouldn’t complain; she’s always available to gossip with Yves, and is basically her only real friend at this crap job.

“So, how was it?” Jinsol asks excitedly when Yves walks into the break room.

“Uneventful,” Yves says, turning on the coffee maker. “Nobody’s got the faintest lead on who could have killed him, or why.”

Jinsol snorts. “I could name at least 50 reasons off the top of my head.”

“Which makes it all the harder to know which one of his enemies did this,” Yves counters. “I think it was a woman, personally, but of course Doyoung wasn’t having it.”

“Why do you think that?” Jinsol asks curiously.

Yves shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know. Just … a feeling.” As she roots through the drawers in search of a granola bar, she thinks about Doyoung’s words. Maybe she  _ does  _ want it to be a woman. She studied psychology at college (probably why she has such a useless job right now), and female killers have always fascinated her. They’re always so much more interesting, so much more multifaceted than the boring old male serial killer with a god complex and mommy issues. She’s never seen a cold-blooded murder case with a female perpetrator, and as morbid as it is, she really wants to.

“Well, at least you got to meet Viian Wong,” Jinsol says ruefully. “I hate being a stupid receptionist. I never get to do cool stuff! And I have to wear these godawful shoes all the time. Like seriously, isn’t it sexist to have heels as a part of my uniform?”

“Yeah, totally,” Yves says, but she isn’t really listening. Instead, her eyes are fixed on the foot that Jinsol dramatically thrust out into the air; the long, thin heel. Stiletto, she thinks they’re called. And for good reason — you could take someone’s eye out with those. Literally.

“Jinsol, you’re an angel,” she exclaims, kissing the blonde on the top of her head and rushing out of the break room, her food forgotten. She flies down the hall to Doyoung’s office, knocking twice and not waiting for an answer before barging in.

Doyoung looks up, irritation already spreading across his face. “I thought I told you to get me some coff—”

“High heels!” Yves bursts out. “The killer could have used the heel of a stiletto shoe to kill Seungri. It would be the perfect size and shape, and the killer could have walked right in and out with it.”

Doyoung looks less than impressed. “There are lots of other things that could be the right size and shape too, Yves. A pen, a fireplace poker from inside the house, a metal straw … I appreciate the input, but really, you’re reaching here.”

“Why won’t you even entertain the idea that it could be a woman?” Yves protests.

Doyoung rubs his temples. “Yves,” he says, in the tone of an exasperated parent talking to a child. “Drop it, okay? We’ll find out soon enough when we talk to the witness.”

“Wait, witness?” Yves exclaims, and Doyoung instantly winces, realizing he’s revealed too much information.

“Yes, they’ve found a witness. But!” He raises a finger to stop Yves from speaking. “He’s completely out of his mind on god-knows-what drugs, doesn’t seem to know how he got from London to Seoul, and he’s only speaking in German. We need to wait for the drugs to wear off, so we’re keeping him at a safe place overnight.”

“But time is of the essence!” Yves cries. “We need to find out who she is before she kills again!”

“Okay, Yves, you’re dismissed. Forget about the coffee,” Doyoung says sharply, and Yves knows there’s no room for argument if she wants to keep her job. She satisfies herself instead by slamming the door shut behind her like a child having a tantrum.

“I hate this job,” she reiterates, storming back into the break room with a dangerous scowl on her face. 

“Join the club,” Jinsol says wryly, back to looking at her magazine. “I’m bored out of my mind.”

Gears start to shift in Yves’ head. “Can I ask you to do something for me, then?” she asks.

“What?” Jinsol asks suspiciously.

“Just look someone up for me in the database?” Yves pleads. “The witness for today’s case? You can do that, right?”

Jinsol sighs, pushing herself off the couch and motioning for Yves to follow her into her office. “Can’t believe you’re actually making me work,” she huffs, but she sits at her computer and goes through the database.

“You’re the best,” Yves says, drumming her foot in anticipation. It takes a few moments of clicking and typing, but soon Jinsol makes a triumphant noise, leaning in to examine the screen.

“Liu Yangyang,” she reads the profile. “German socialite. Doesn’t say much here in the notes, other than he may have seen the killer shortly after the murder was committed.”

“Liu Yangyang,” Yves repeats, her brain whirring. “Does it say where they’re holding him overnight?”

Jinsol clicks a few more times. “Not yet. He’s still at the station, as of ten minutes ago.”

“Oh. Okay,” Yves says nonchalantly, leaning against the door. “I’m gonna get lunch, you want anything?”

Jinsol eyes her cynically. “You’re just going to go down to the station and do what Doyoung specifically told you not to do, aren’t you?”

“No, I said I’m going for lunch!” Yves says, throwing her hands up in fake exasperation. “Do you want something, yes or no?”

“Fine, get me an egg salad sandwich,” Jinsol says, unconvinced. She listens to Yves’ eager footsteps as she walks down the hall, way too excited for someone who’s just going to lunch.

“I’m never going to see that sandwich, am I?” she asks her goldfish sadly. It's probably her imagination, but she swears he nods sympathetically.

Yves makes it to the station in record time, tapping her foot impatiently on the subway and praying they don’t move the witness before she gets there. Even though she’s just an assistant, she still has the same government ID as the rest of the people in her department, which makes it very easy for her to get in.

“I’m here to see Liu Yangyang for questioning,” she says to the man working the front desk, flashing her badge quick enough that he won’t see the small  _ Investigative Assistant  _ underneath her name.

He buzzes her in, raising his eyebrows. “Good luck,” he says with a barely-concealed smirk. 

Yves doesn’t understand what he means until she gets into the room and sees the witness, who is most definitely flying high. His pupils are blown so wide she can’t even see the iris, and in the 30 seconds of her being in the room he cycles through laughing, sobbing, and muttering to himself in a language she can’t speak.

“Jesus. Can someone get him a tea or something?” Yves asks, sitting across the table from him. Beside her is an older woman she assumes to be the translator, looking very harrowed.

“He’s been like this for hours,” she says. “I’ve only been able to get his name and the fact that he attended Lee Seungri’s birthday party.”

“We know both of those things,” Yves says impatiently. “He says he saw someone who could have been the killer. Can you ask him about that?”

The woman translates, and Yangyang looks like he’s thinking for a moment before bursting into fresh giggles. The translator repeats the question, louder this time, and Yangyang actually responds this time, mumbling out half a sentence before getting distracted looking at his own hands.

“He said something about a hallway? Or a bathroom?” she says helplessly. Yangyang points at the side of his head, and Yves notices a small red bump she hadn’t picked up on before.

“Ask who did that to him,” Yves orders, and the translator does so. Yangyang just shakes his head and imitates falling over, which is so hilarious that it sets him off laughing again.

Yves pinches the bridge of her nose, already feeling a headache coming on. “Okay, okay. Can you ask him to describe the person? Was it a man or a woman?”

Yangyang actually responds to this too, although it takes him a while to get the words out between fits of laughter. The woman translates as she goes: “He says short … blonde … oh.” Her cheeks tint pink slightly, and she coughs. “He didn’t say it quite so politely, but um … flat-chested.”

Yves stands up so fast she knocks her chair over. “Yangyang, I could kiss you,” she exclaims triumphantly, to which Yangyang smiles and nods dreamily, blowing a kiss in her direction.

Yves heads back to the office feeling like she’s walking on air, only pausing at the front desk. “Can we get Liu Yangyang moved to a medical facility, please? That boy needs an IV drip. Like, yesterday.”

**P A R I S**

There really is no place like home.

Lip has never had a stable life, ever since she can remember: first it was being moved around foster homes, then schools, then detention centers. Now, it’s countries. One of her favorite things about this job is that she gets to travel across the world, seeing new things and being new people each time. At the end of the day, though, she always finds herself returning to Paris. 

The year-long lease on this quaint little apartment is probably the most commitment she’s ever experienced in her life, but she doesn’t regret it. It’s nice to have a place to call her own, no matter how small and insignificant, plus it has a big claw-foot tub which she likes to soak in after finishing a job.

That’s what she  _ would  _ be doing right now, but when she enters her dark home and flips the lights on, she realizes that she’s not alone. The other woman sits with her back to her in Lip’s plush vintage armchair, but Lip would recognize that short head of hair anywhere.

“Bon retour,” Haseul says, watching Lip plop down on the couch across from her. She’s sipping a clear liquid that Lip hopes is water, but is definitely her very expensive vodka, judging by the opened bottle on the table.

“You know, sitting in the dark and drinking from a tiny cup doesn’t make you intimidating,” Lip says, reaching out for the bottle.

Haseul smacks her hand away, grabbing the vodka herself and refilling her cup. “You don’t get to celebrate just yet.”

Lip pouts. “Why not?! Seungri’s good and dead, I promise. It’s been all over the news.”

“But there’s a witness who is very much alive,” Haseul says coldly.

“What?” Lip exclaims, half-laughing. “There’s absolutely no way. We were completely alone in that room…”

She trails off when Haseul slaps a target file down on the table, sliding it over so she can see. “Fuck,” she mutters, staring down at the picture of the man she saw (and tripped) in the hallway.

“Liu Yangyang, socialite, attendee of the party,” Haseul says. “The British police have him in their custody, and they plan on questioning him tomorrow. You’re going to arrive there before then and kill him, too. And you  _ won’t  _ be seen this time.”

“How was it my fault he was roaming around the house?” Lip protests. “Besides, he was so fucked up when he saw me that there’s no way he’ll be of any use to them. And why the hell are the  _ British  _ police getting involved in this?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Haseul says, throwing down another piece of paper: a train ticket. “All I know is that you’re going to clean up the mess you made. Your train leaves in an hour.”

Lip’s jaw drops. “But I just got back!”

“Don’t fuck up this time,” Haseul says, as if Lip didn’t speak, and rises from her seat to leave. “Make it look like a suicide this time, Lip. A high heel to the eye isn’t exactly subtle.”

Lip continues sulking, ignoring Haseul until she’s almost out of the door. Then she calls out: “Wait. First class?”

“Of course,” Haseul says, with the kind of tired fondness that comes with having a very misbehaved child, and closes the door behind her. Lip contemplates throwing a tantrum, but it won’t be any fun if she’s alone. Besides, she has a train to catch, apparently. At least she doesn’t have to pack all over again, she thinks, looking at her suitcase still parked by the door.

It’s not till she’s halfway to London that she realizes she doesn’t have a wig in this suitcase anymore. Fuck. She supposes it’s time to let her scalp breathe, anyway.

**L O N D O N**

Yves has only called in sick to work one time: she lied to her boss at the mall in high school to go see a Wonder Girls concert. Since joining MI6, she definitely hasn’t had any sick days — in fact, she works the hardest out of everyone she knows, in her opinion. She’s proud of her perfect record, which is why she’s so irked about having to lie about being sick so she can go to the hospital and question Yangyang.

“I can’t come into work today,” she says on the phone, fake coughing in to the receiver.

“Okay,” Doyoung says with a sigh. “Don’t come in to work for the rest of the week either, it’s cold season and I don’t want it to spread.”

“Oh, um. It’s not a cold,” Yves says, her mind rushing. “It’s, uh. The shits. Like, explosive.”

Doyoung doesn’t say anything for a moment, and she can picture his face, halfway between laughing and being irritated. “You know, you don’t have to lie, Yves,” he says finally. “You’re allowed to take a day off every now and then.”

“Thanks,” she mutters, hanging up the call. She hates that he’s being understanding about it; she’d feel way less guilty if he’d yelled at her or something. Either way, if he had listened to her and took her ideas seriously, she wouldn’t have to sneak around behind his back.

Of course, everyone at the police department thinks she’s on official business, thanks to her MI6 badge, which is why they let her borrow the translator and tell her where Yangyang is without question. He’s been in the hospital overnight, and is hopefully sober enough now to talk. 

“Okay, it’s room 762, down the hall there. I’m just gonna go to the washroom,” Yves says, pointing the translator to the room. Under the fluorescent lighting, she inspects the bags under her eyes, tugs lightly at the skin of her cheekbones. She hasn’t gotten much sleep all night; something about this case had her up all night, tossing and turning and unable to think about anything else.

As she ties and unties her hair repeatedly, the repetitive movement relieving some of her stress, a woman exits one of the stalls and washes her hands. She’s shorter than Yves, dressed in a nurse’s uniform with her hair tucked back in a cap. She’s stunningly beautiful even with no makeup on, with soft brown hair and rosebud lips, and Yves can’t help but stare a little.

The woman looks up, catches Yves’s eye in the mirror. Yves looks away, feeling herself blush, and yanks her hair aggressively into the tie.

The woman turns off the tap and turns to look at Yves fully, a small smile on her face. “Wear it down,” she says, and walks out without drying her hands.

Yves blinks, looks at her reflection again, and lets her hair fall down her shoulders.

She actually ends up peeing out of nervousness, and then gives herself a long pep talk in the mirror, so it’s a few minutes before she heads out of the bathroom herself. She whistles as she walks down the hallway to lift her spirits, an upbeat sound that fades out abruptly when she reaches the room and sees the carnage within.

Frozen in the doorway, Yves surveys the scene: there’s blood everywhere, so much that she doesn’t know where to look. Yangyang lies dead in his bed, his throat slit and still dribbling blood down his front. There’s another bed with a patient in it, throat slit the same way, as well as a nurse on the floor between them, and finally the translator, lying face down in a growing puddle of her blood. The sight of her familiar ponytail, now red and matted, is what snaps Yves out of her trance.

She tries to speak, but it takes a few attempts before she’s able to cry out hoarsely: “Help! I need some help in here!  _ Please _ !”

Yves manages to take a few steps down the hallway, trying to run away from the massacre, towards help, but the shock catches up to her quickly and her legs give out from underneath here. As she falls, she’s able to spot a few orderlies running around the corner, shouting something she can’t make out, and then her head hits the ground and she falls into peaceful darkness.

* * *

Yves doesn’t really remember what happened after she fell: when she gained her consciousness back, who gave her this soft shock blanket to wear, how she even got to the station. Now, she’s sitting in the all-too familiar interrogation room, except this time she’s on the other side of the two-way mirror, being inspected like a bug under a microscope.

They’ve left her in here alone for a couple minutes, in the way she knows they do to psych out the suspects, make them nervous before the questioning. She hates to say that it’s working. It doesn’t help that every time she blinks, images of what she saw play out in her head like a gruesome photoshow. There was just so much blood. Of course you see scenes like that in movies, but what they don't tell you about is the _smell_, like rusty copper and metal pins. She's never understood the phrase 'the smell of death', but now she definitely does. She knows that smell, and it won't leave the inside of her nose.

Instead of a police offer, she’s surprised when Doyoung is the one who marches through the door, rage etched into his features. His tie is askew and his hair is ruffled from the strong wind outside, and Yves thinks he looks like a very angry bunny. The thought would have made her laugh, if she could feel anything right now. 

Even more surprisingly, Viian Wong enters the room after him. She’s not wearing a suit like last time, but rather is dressed down in pants and a cardigan. Yves wonders if they’ve caught her on her day off, and she thinks of how disappointed Jinsol’s going to be.  _ You pulled Viian Wong out of her weekend plans? Yves!! _

They both sit on the table across from her, and the silence before Doyoung speaks is unbearable. “You conducted an illegal investigation,” he says, finally. “You authorized a witness to be moved and for a translator to be dispatched. You lied to get out of your  _ real  _ job so you could go and play your pretend job, which got four people killed!”

His voice slowly rises until he’s practically shouting at the end, then he sits back and adjusts his tie, obviously still fuming but holding it back. Yves shakes her head, unable to meet his eyes.

“But I was right,” she says, barely above a whisper. “Doesn’t that matter?”

“No!” Doyoung explodes. “It doesn’t matter, Yves! I don’t… my God. You know I have to fire you for this, right? At the  _ very  _ least?”

She can’t say she didn’t see that coming, but it still hits hard. She nods dully, still looking down. “I know.”

“Fucking hell, Yves. What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t,” Yves says honestly, finally looking up to meet Doyoung and regrets it when he sees that he just looks disappointed now, not mad. It makes her tear up a little, so she looks away again, determined not to cry. Then, she jerks with surprise when she feels Doyoung’s hand clasp hers for a moment across the table.

“You could have died, Yves. I’m glad you didn’t,” he says, with something almost resembling tenderness. Then he clears his throat and stands to leave, with Viian following afterwards. She’s been so quiet, Yves almost forgot she was in the room. 

Viian pauses in the doorway and turns around to address Yves. “What were you right about?”

Yves swallows bitterly. “The killer is a woman. The witness … Yangyang ... he told me.”

Viian nods and leaves without another word. When the door closes behind them, Yves drops her face into her hands and allows herself to cry. The cops watching behind the mirror at least have the decency to let her sob herself out before they go in to get her official statement. 

Afterwards, Yves goes to clear her desk. Doyoung says she can come at any time, but she knows she’s not going to want to leave her bed for the next few days, so she wants to get it over with. Jinsol watches as she packs her stuff into the impersonal cardboard box, fretting and pacing. 

“They can’t fire you!” she exclaims tearfully. “I’ll quit too! This is bullshit!”

Yves smiles sadly. “It’s not, Jinsol. I should be glad they’re just firing me and not pressing charges. I … I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Well, you were right!” Jinsol says firmly. “You found out that it was a woman.”

“That doesn’t matter now, Jinsol. People are dead,” Yves says, subconsciously echoing Doyoung’s words from earlier, and then picks up her stuff and pushes past her friend before more tears can fall. 

**B U L G A R I A**

The most important part of a murder is being prepared. It’s why Lip never gets caught, despite the usually bold, public nature of her kills: you have to know exactly how your plan is going to go in order to properly execute it. 

So, you sneak in the back to watch the lockers, to see which girls look the same size as you so you know whose waitress uniform to steal. You take a plate of canapés up to the ballroom, where they’re celebrating the latest perfume launch from one of the largest scent moguls in the industry. You smell the perfume politely even thought it’s cloying and overly-sweet, and you nod and pretend to understand when guests yell out orders at you. 

And you watch her, the woman of the hour, so you can see when she heads to the bathroom and follow. You anticipate that someone is going to try to stop you, saying it’s guests-only, so you innocently say you’re bringing someone a tampon and he blushes and lets you through. Typical man. 

You wait till everyone’s left except her and approach her meekly at the sinks, spinning some sad tale about how she’s your icon and you want to break into the scent business yourself and please, could she try your sample perfume? She smiles generously, takes the little bottle from you and sprays some on her wrist, inhaling deeply. When she says she can’t smell anything, you suggest another good whiff — it’s quite subtle. 

When she falls to the floor and starts choking because, no, that was not perfume, it was cold pressed peanut oil, you tell her that someone with an allergy as severe as hers really should be more careful about what they take from strangers. And as much as you want to stay, watch the light slowly fade from her eyes and the panic on her face turn into despair, you know you have to leave because someone could come in at any minute. 

Lip ditches the waitress outfit as soon as she’s out of the building, but keeps the wig on. It’s short and black, and honestly quite cute on her. She’s catching a train back to Paris in a few hours, but decides to use the money newly deposited in her bank account to book a luxury flight back instead. She needs to feel good about something, because recently, killing hasn’t been producing that same thrill anymore. 

She’s just … bored. Bored of being meticulous, of being perfect. She can’t remember the last time she  _ really _ felt something. 

Well — she kind of can. Right before she murdered Liu Yangyang, in the bathroom. That woman she saw … it’s not often that someone is able to take Lip’s breath away like that. She mingles with beautiful people all the time (including herself) but something about her was different. She was nervous about, Lip could tell: it was evident on her face, raw and open. Vulnerable. Breakable. 

Like prey, Lip thinks. She’s definitely a predator, but she’s so good at catching her prey that it’s not even fun anymore, like a bored cat batting at a dead mouse. 

Maybe what she needs is a chase. 

**L O N D O N **

Yves’s small apartment feels colder than usual today, as she huddles closer to the microwave to try and absorb some of its heat. Maybe it’s just the numbness she feels spreading throughout her. Her TV dinner tastes bland when she eats it, and she skips through channels before finally choosing to eat in silence.

When she hears a knock at the door, she’s expecting it to be Jinsol, come to comfort her. She’s ready to tell her friend that she appreciates the support but she really wants to be alone, but it’s not Jinsol at the door. It’s Viian Wong, looking so out of place in Yves’s dingy apartment hall that she steps back, blinking.

“Vi— Ms. Wong? What are you doing here?”

“Call me Vivi. May I come in?” asks Vivi, but she’s already pushing past the door. She sits herself on the couch, peering around at the apartment with polite interest.

“Um … sure.” Yves shuts the door and heads to the kitchen, looking for something to do with her hands. “Tea?”

“I’d love some,” Vivi replies. As Yves boils the water and pulls out cups, Vivi speaks, her voice quiet but commanding of attention.

“Yves, it  _ does  _ matter that you were right about the killer being a woman. It’s something that nobody else on the case was able to spot, and it’s very valuable information to us at MI6. We suspect this may be the work of a serial killer.”

“Serial?” Yves asks, bringing the mugs over.

Vivi takes a small sip of tea before continuing. “There’s no rhythm or rhyme to the killings, and nothing to connect them except that all the victims are all rich, well-known, or both. She’s probably just a pawn for a larger organization, but I believe that this is not her first kill — or her even her most recent. She has a certain … elegance to the way she kills, even though the method is different each time. We want to get to the root of the organization, of course, but it seems that she’s the closest connection we have to them at the time.”

Yves is listening raptly, and as soon as Vivi finishes she blurts out, “you think she’s killed again?”

Vivi nods. “Yes, we believe she’s currently active. We have a small team working on tracking her down, and Yves, I think you’d be a very valuable asset to that team. You’ve proven yourself as perceptive, determined, and above all, an independent thinker — a characteristic I value very much.”

“Wait. You want me to join a team to track down this killer?” Yves asks, almost unable to believe her ears.

“Yes,” Vivi confirms. “The pay won’t be phenomenal, and it’s all very top-secret and undercover, but we would love to have you.”

“Yes!” Yves exclaims, almost spilling her tea in excitement. “Absolutely yes, Ms. Wong — sorry, Vivi. I would love to join.”

Vivi smiles, making her look much younger. “Alright. You can start whenever you want, I’ll understand if you need a few days off.”

Yves shakes her head enthusiastically. “No, the sooner the better!” The dread in the pit of her stomach has reduced significantly, and she can’t see anything other than this beautiful, shiny opportunity right in front of her. 

Vivi gives her a phone number and an address to meet at tomorrow, then leaves, bidding her a good night. Yves finishes her meal and heads to bed, even though she knows it’s an exercise in futility. She’s never going to be able to sleep tonight. On one hand, there’s the excitement of her new job prospect and the possibility of being able to hunt down this mysterious killer. On the other hand, deep down she’s still filled with guilty. She can’t stop thinking about Doyoung’s words. Four people are dead, and she would've made it five if she hadn’t stopped in the bathroom…

She sits up in bed suddenly, an image flashing into her mind unbidden. That nurse that she’d seen in the bathroom. Where had she gone? It wasn’t the same nurse who had been murdered, but there isn’t anywhere else in the hallway she could have gone … unless, of course, she wasn’t really a nurse.

Yves shuts her eyes tight and draws the image to the front of her mind, remembering how the woman was a few inches shorther than her. How the nurse’s outfit had looked stretched across her broad shoulders and slim frame. The way her breasts had barely filled out the front of the shirt. 

She fumbles for her phone on the nightstand, almost knocking it over in her hurry to dial the number Vivi had just given her. She waits impatiently as it rings a few times, tapping her foot rapidly against the bed until the line is picked up.

“Hello? Vivi? It’s Yves. I think I’ve seen her.”


	2. color me a little more, you and i / as if it were meant to be

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay yall, so minor character death in this chapter (none of the loona girls) be warned!

**L O N D O N**

At first, Yves thinks Vivi’s given her the wrong address. She’d been told to come at 9, so naturally she made sure to be there by 8:50, but she’s not sure she has the right place. She’s currently standing in front of a small storefront advertising hot-dogs, and it looks so sketchy she thinks she wouldn’t eat there if she was starving to death.

She checks the napkin Vivi had scribbled the address on, but it’s definitely the right one. She double checks, then triple checks to make sure. The bored-looking girl sitting at the storefront seems to notice her plight, and leans forward to address her.

“Can I help you?”

“Um,” Yves says. “No, I don’t think so. I’m supposed to be meeting someone here, but … I don’t see her."

“Who is it you’re looking for, if I might ask?” the girl asks, looking more alert now.

“Vivi?” Yves says, because why not, and to her immense surprise the girl nods.

“Come round the back,” she says, disappearing behind the storefront and flipping the sign to  _ SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED!  _ Yves follows the girl’s instructions, practically running to the back of the building. Of course, it’s a fake cover. She feels stupid for thinking it was the wrong place now. What was she expecting, for Vivi to meet her at a Starbucks like this is a study date? 

At the back of the building, she has to climb a fire escape where the girl she saw at the storefront lets her into what looks like a small office. Despite its small size, it’s overflowing with boxes full of cases and paperwork, as well as a very complicated looking computer system and two desks. Vivi is sitting at one of them, drinking a mug of milky tea and looking through a file.

“Hello, Yves,” she says. “Welcome. I’m sorry you don’t have your own desk just yet, but we can share.”

“It’s no problem,” Yves says, and sits in the seat Vivi motions to across the desk from her. She feels strangely intimidated, shy almost.

“This is Olivia,” Vivi says, gesturing to the black-haired girl, and Olivia nods at Yves. “Apart from you, we’re the only ones working on this specific case.”

“Oh, wow,” Yves says. That really doesn’t help with the intimidation.

Vivi picks up on her nerves and smiles knowingly. “Relax. It’s an unofficial investigation … for now.”

Yves nods, tucking her hair behind her ears and trying to appear confident. “Right. I guess we should … get started?”

“Yes, let’s. Can you start with telling me what you said to Vivi last night?” Olivia asks. “About seeing the killer?”

“I  _ might  _ have,” Yves amends. “Before … it happened, I was in the bathroom and I saw a woman in there. She left shortly before me.”

“How shortly? Long enough to kill four people and then disappear?” Vivi asks.

“Maybe? You suspect she’s a serial killer, right? That means she’s done this before. And since she’s probably carrying out these kills for an organization, she must be highly skilled and experienced. So yes, with that in mind I think it was long enough.”

“What makes you think there’s an organization behind this?” Vivi asks.

Yves falters. “Well … I don’t really know anything about the other cases yet, but you said they were random and the victims were the elite. It kind of sounds like she’s just a pawn for something that goes higher… maybe? Especially to have the money for all the traveling and disguises.”

“Definitely. Don’t doubt yourself so much, Yves,” Vivi says, managing to sound nice and chiding at the same time. “We think it’s an organization, too. Back to this woman, though— did she fit the witness description? Blonde, short, flat-chested.”

“Well, she was a brunette, but I assume she would be changing her appearance regularly. But short and … yeah, she fit the description otherwise,” Yves says, willing herself not to blush. Olivia barely attempts to mask her laugh as a cough.

“Okay, noted. That’s already really valuable to us,” Vivi says, writing it down. “We can spend the rest of the day looking over the other cases we think she might be involved in.”

“Welcome to the team,” Olivia grins, dropping a mountain of paperwork onto Yves’ desk.

It probably would have been a nightmare to anybody else, but Yves is practically on Cloud 9. She  _ loves  _ what she does, loves reading and learning and making connections, and she gets completely absorbed in perusing the files. The cases go back almost six years and add up to hundreds of victims, but Yves understands why they haven’t been able to get her yet. Her work is impeccable, and makes for some of the most interesting cases Yves has ever read.

She gets so caught up in reading that it’s already nearing sunset by the time she puts down the final file. Olivia’s gone to get food, and Vivi is sitting across from Yves on her laptop in comfortable silence.

“I wonder,” Yves says quietly, mostly to herself.

“What?” Vivi asks, looking up over her glasses.

“If all these killings are really hers … all these years, all these murders, and nobody has a whiff on her. Nobody probably even knows these are all related except us. But her last two kills, there have been witnesses. I just wonder why she’s getting sloppy now.”

Vivi purses her lips and then shakes her head slowly. “I don’t think she’s getting sloppy. I think she’s getting bored.”

**R O M E**

Lip is very good at her job, but she thinks that the people she kills always make it significantly easier for her. No matter how famous, how rich, how important somebody is, it’s guaranteed that there will always be cracks in their armour which her analytical eye can easily spot. 

For example, when the Italian wine mogul Emile.. Emilio? Or perhaps something entirely different? Something that starts with an E, definitely. The point is, when he throws his famous monthly wine-tasting parties, there’s no lack of security at the front gate, but the back of the house is completely clear of security. It’s almost  _ too  _ easy for Lip to scale the drainpipe and crawl through an open window. 

Then, there’s the case of loved ones. Lip thinks love is nothing more than a weakness, a terribly pathetic weakness that leads to people’s downfall far more often than their uprising. People will do anything for those they love, she finds, and it’s a fact that has definitely come in handy for her during this career path. 

Although she can barely remember the target’s name, she’s extensively studied his face, so it isn’t hard to spot a child that’s probably related to him, entertaining himself by running up and down the stairs. 

“Careful, or you might fall,” Lip says, approaching the child. Her Italian is rusty, but he seems to understand her just fine. 

“I’m a big boy!” he protests. “Grand-papa said I could play wherever I want.”

_ Bingo.  _ Lip puts on a convincing smile and crouches to meet the child’s eye level. “Well, big boy, want to play a grown up game of hide and seek with me and your Grand-papa?”

The child, obviously bored out of his mind, agrees readily. Lip watches from the window as he goes out to the garden and tugs his grandfather away, just like Lip had instructed him to. The man follows with an obliging smile, laughing when his grandchild takes off running for a head start. 

“He’s coming!” the child giggles excitedly, rushing back into the room where Lip told him to return. 

“Great! Quick, hide in here,” she says, ushering him into the bathroom connected to the room and quietly locking him in. After that it’s just a matter of waiting, reclining on the bed in several different positions before deciding on one that she deems the perfect mix of coy and shy. 

When the man walks past the room, he does a double take at the sight of Lip. Of course he does: she knows she looks like an angel in this blonde wig and sheer white gown. She looks ripe for corrupting, which is evidently the only thing powerful men care to do. 

“Have you seen a little boy? Davide?” he asks, stepping into the room. “I’m looking for him.”

She bites her lip. “Would you mind closing the door behind you?”

Like an idiot, he rushes to comply, enclosing them both in the small space. She beckons him forward with a crook of her finger, and he approaches, mesmerized. 

Lip could drag this out, flirt a little and get him riled up, but she’s bored already. She takes the pin out of her hair, letting the blonde waves flow loosely around her shoulders. He leans in eagerly, at the perfect angle for her to flip the switch on her hairpin, revealing a thin needle, and jab it into the side of his neck. 

The poison acts quickly, and he slumps onto the floor face down, twitching violently. Lip considers rolling his body over so she can watch him die, but she’s not even excited about that anymore. Honestly? She just wants to go out into the garden and drink some free wine, which is exactly what she ends up doing. 

It’s not till she’s leaving the party, slightly drunk and very rich, that she remembers Davide, still locked inside the bathroom. Well. At least he’ll have somewhere to pee if he needs to. 

Haseul booked her a train ticket home for that night, but Lip already knew she’d be staying longer. She’s always loved Rome; everything and everyone is so pretty, right down to the language. Also, it has an excellent party scene. Clubbing is one of the few things that brings her joy other than killing: it’s sex, drink, and drugs, all in one convenient package. What’s not to like?

Sometime past midnight, she meets a boy at the club. She doesn’t catch the name that he shouts over the pounding music, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not him she cares about. She’s chasing her own pleasure, as she always is. He seems like a nice boy, someone who deserves better, but that seems to be her type these days.

She flirts and dances and bats her eyelids, accepting drink after drink that he buys for her, and at the end of the night she’s in his bed with him underneath her. He turns out to be the affectionate type, wanting to exchange long, slow gazes while they fuck, but Lip literally can’t think of anything more unarousing. Instead, she presses his face into the pillow and tries to ignore him as much as she can while she gets herself off. If she tilts her head a little she can look out of the open window and admire the beautiful city skyline.

Sex is usually kind of mechanical for her, driven by biological need more than anything else, but for some reason when she comes this time her brain presents her with an image: long black hair, soft and shiny, wrapped around her fingers as she tugs hard. 

It’s the best orgasm she’s had in months.

Lip doesn’t usually spend the night, but she’s tired and she bets this guy is the type to make her breakfast the next morning, so she says fuck it and passes out beside him on the bed, stealing all the blankets. She greatly regrets it when she wakes up the next morning not to a platter of pancakes and orange juice, but the all-too familiar sight of Haseul standing with her arms folded and staring judgingly at her.

“You’re not breakfast,” she grumbles.

“Good morning, Lip,” Haseul says with a sigh. 

“Why are you even here? I thought you were in…” Lip trails off. “Actually, I have no idea where you were.”

“As it should be,” Haseul says dryly. “I’m here to check up on you. You missed your train and I had to make sure you weren’t, you know, dead or in prison.”

“Thanks, Mom, but I can take care of myself,” Lip snorts, rolling over.

“Clearly,” Haseul says with disdain, eyeing the man beside her who’s begun to stir.

“G’morning,” he murmurs, lifting his head from the mattress and blinking a few times. He yelps when he sees Haseul standing there, grabbing the blankets from Lip to cover himself. Lip doesn’t bother grabbing them back; Haseul has seen her in more compromising positions.

“Who the hell are you?” he splutters, looking back and forth between them.

Lip smiles gracefully. “Lorenzo, honey—”

“It’s Matteo!”

“Really? Not even close? Damn. Anyway, could you give us just a moment alone?”

“But it’s my house,” he protests, still confused with sleep.

“Okay, God, go get us some breakfast or something,” Lip says, more snappily, and it intimidates him out of bed, sheepishly grabbing his clothes off the floor and scuttling out past Haseul. As soon as they hear the door close behind him, Lip springs up and starts hunting for her clothes too.

“So I’m guessing you’re not staying around for that breakfast,” Haseul says, eyeing her as she pokes her head out through the sleeve hole of the dress.

“Fuck no,” Lip replies, her voice muffled before she finally gets the garment on. “Let’s get out of here. Wanna fly back? They don’t have movies on the train, it’s boring.”

Haseul grabs her arm as she moves to leave the room, stopping her in her tracks. “You’re not here on vacation, Lip,” she says warningly. “You can’t come and go as you please. When I hand you a job with a ticket back, I expect you to take it. And I won’t warn you more than once.”

Lip yanks her arm free, continuing to walk out of the house. “Jesus, Haseul, okay! You’re no fun when you get like this, seriously.”

Lip opens the front door, but Haseul slams it shut and shoves Lip against it. Her expression more than makes up for their height difference: she looks calm and composed as always, but her eyes are cold and sharp in a way that makes even Lip cower.

“That’s what I’m worried about, Lip,” Haseul says evenly. “That you’re in this for fun, and you’re forgetting that it’s business. And your behavior is doing nothing to quell my fears. You’re getting careless.”

“Are you serious?” Lip exclaims. “I just perfectly executed a hit less than 24 hours ago, and I killed that witness just like you asked.”

“And I recall telling you to make it look like a suicide. How often does one slit their own throat?”

“It happens!”

“And kill three other people?”

Lip scoffs. “Whatever. I didn’t get caught, did I?”

“No, but you’re flying too close to the sun, Lip. One day you’re going to crash and burn,” Haseul warns. “And by the way you’re going about it, it’s going to be sooner rather than later. There’s a detective who’s got her eye on you, you know. Ex-MI6, but she’s still working undercover to find you. That worries me, Lip. A lot.”

Lip blinks, forgetting whatever half-formed snarky reply she had coming. “Wait— really? She’s looking for  _ me _ ?”

“Yes. She doesn’t know it’s you, but she worked on the Seungri case with the British police and now she’s investigating several of your other files,” Haseul says. “Now, usually I’d say that you’re clean enough that she won’t get very far, but now … I don’t know. Just be careful, Lip. You’re a valuable agent. We wouldn’t want to lose you.”

“Right,” Lip murmurs, ignoring the thinly-veiled threat. “What’s her name? That detective.”

“Does it matter?” Haseul replies. 

“Just curious,” Lip says with a shrug. “Know your enemies, right?”

Haseul holds her gaze for a moment, then relents. “Ha Sooyoung. She goes by Yves.”

“Ha Sooyoung,” Lip repeats, and as they exit the building, she allows herself a smile behind Haseul’s back. Pretty name.

Pretty girl, too, she soon finds. Ha Sooyoung is very hard to find online, which Lip has to give her credit for in this day and age. Of course, there’s other people on the Internet with the same name, but they’re all clearly not MI6 agents. Then, almost by pure luck, she stumbles upon a picture of a large group of people at what looks like an office party, all smiling and holding cake, and there. There she is. 

Although there’s easily 40 people in the picture, Lip is drawn to that face instantly. She remembers her like a bolt of lighting: her pretty face and worn out eyes, looking at Lip curiously through the bathroom mirror. Her hair, tied and untied and tied again, long and shiny and black.

Lip leans back in her chair, her heart fluttering so hard she feels it in her throat. The chase is most definitely on. And this time, she’s the prey.

**L O N D O N**

“Yves, we need to talk.”

Yves freezes at the table, hearing Vivi come up and draw a seat beside her. She’s on her fifth cup of coffee and probably her five-hundredth file: she’s looking through all the active female serial killers in the  _ world _ , and without the high-tech gear she’s used to at MI6, it’s taking quite some time. She’s already tired and irritable and sleep-deprived from throwing herself into this investigation for the past few weeks, and the last thing she needs to hear is  _ we need to talk _ .

Vivi regards her with a careful expression before speaking. “She killed again.”

Yves leans forward, feeling her heart jump erratically. “When?” she breathes. “Who? Where?”

“Yesterday night. The victim was an elite Chinese businessman, and as for where … well. I won’t sugarcoat it: it was a private sector of a hospital where clients paid to be medically tortured for sexual gratification.”

Yves chokes on her coffee, feeling her face flame up while she listens to the sound of Olivia trying not to laugh from where she’s sitting at her computer. Vivi’s face remains serious, and she waits for Olivia’s giggles to die down before she continues speaking. “We already contacted the hospital to get the names of the nurses on staff, and they found one that isn’t on their usual roster.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Yves asks with a meek smile, but it’s not returned. Instead, Vivi wordlessly slides a piece of paper across the table. Yves picks it up and swears she feels everything stop for a minute, because it’s  _ her _ . She’s in a different wig this time, long and black and unassuming, and she’s wearing square glasses, but the woman in the ID picture is undeniably the same one Yves saw in the bathroom.

Yves’ eyes continue to scan the rest of the page, and her mouth goes dry when she reads the name below the picture:  _ Ha Sooyoung. _

“That’s … that’s not possible,” she says. “That’s my name.”

“I know,” Vivi says with a sigh. “I’m afraid she’s onto you, Yves. She must know you’re investigating her. Understandably, that causes some … problems.”

Yves swallows, trying not to feel disappointed. “So I guess I have to stop working here, right?” She can’t believe this. She’s getting dumped by Viian Wong.

“That’s up to you, Yves,” Vivi says, her tone gentler than before. “I would understand if you did, of course, but actually …”

“Actually what?” Yves prompts, but Vivi just shakes her head.

“No, no. I don’t want to jeopardize your safety. God knows I’d be walking out right now if I were you.”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Olivia says impatiently. She’s been unsubtly eavesdropping at her computer, and now she wheels her chair over to the table. “She’s saying you’re bait.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have phrased it  _ quite  _ like that,” Vivi grits. “But essentially, yes. Yves, she seems to be interested in you, and I think we could use that to our advantage. Again, you have every right to walk out right now, but we think you could be a useful asset to us.”

Yves bites her lip. “You think she’s interested in me?”

“Clearly,” Olivia says, raising an eyebrow. “And she knows you’re interested in her, too. In my opinion, it’s only a matter of time before she tries to make contact, and I think you’re safer with us than alone.”

“Well said, Olivia,” Vivi says, and Olivia wheels her chair back away to hide her smile. Yves has noticed that Olivia often acts independent and aloof, but the way she lights up when Vivi praises her is undeniable. 

Vivi continues, “so the choice is yours, Yves.”

Yves shakes her head, her mind already more than made up. “I’m not going anywhere until we catch her.”

It’s not until later, back at her apartment and taking a long shower to ease her tense muscles, that the reality of the situation catches up to her. This mysterious, skilled murderer not only knows her real name and assumedly where she works, she also used Yves’ name as an alias to — to what? To taunt her? To let her know that she’s onto her? Whatever the reason may be, none of the ones Yves comes up with are in any way reassuring.

She knows this is a top secret, very unofficial investigation, but she thinks she might explode if she doesn’t talk to somebody, so she invites Jinsol over for dinner. To her immense relief, her friend accepts. Also, she hates to admit it, but being alone in this apartment is starting to freak her out, considering what she now knows. It probably wouldn’t be very difficult for the killer to find out where she lives. 

The worst part is that when Yves thinks of walking into her house to find  _ her  _ sitting on the couch waiting for her, it’s not 100% fear that she feels. Somewhere deep inside her is a burning intrigue, a deep-seated need to look into her face and ask her  _ why?  _ Yves has always been a little more than fascinated with female killers — what makes them tick, their upbringing, their psychopathy scores — and from the material she’s read, this woman is the most fascinating of them all. And the fact that she used Yves’ name for a kill, like she was sending her a little private message between the two of them … it’s almost exciting, if excitement is usually accompanied by a feeling of dread.

Jinsol arrives with a bottle of wine, reminding Yves exactly why they’re friends, and they decide to order takeout and eat it on Yves’ couch while watching trash TV and talking shit. Jinsol catches her up on all the workplace drama she’s missing out on: apparently, Doyoung has gone through three new assistants already. They’ve begun a betting pool as to how long the fourth will last, and Jinsol’s confident with her bet of 9 days.

Yves truly misses Jinsol, and as they talk and laugh together it eases a lot of the stress she’s feeling, replacing it with the ease and comfort of being around somebody you love. Still, by the end of the night her secret is still weighing heavy on her chest, so when Jinsol yawns and says she should get going, Yves stops her.

“Jinsol— wait.” Jinsol’s already begun to get up, but she sits back down when she sees the urgency in Yves’ face.

“What’s up?”

“I actually asked you here cause I wanted to tell you something.” Yves takes a deep breath. “This is top secret, so I never told you this, but … I’m actually working undercover to find her. The woman who killed Yangyang. And a lot of other people, as I’m finding out. We suspect that she’s a serial killer who’s been active for quite some time.”

Jinsol’s jaw drops, and her eyes continue to get wider and wider as Yves continues speaking. “Yves, what the f—”

“That’s not all,” Yves says quickly before she can lose her nerve. “She knows we’re onto her. Knows  _ I’m  _ onto her. She used my name as a fake name on one of her recent kills.”

Jinsol gasps audibly, her hand flying up to clap over her mouth. “Yves, please tell me you’re not serious!” she cries, her voice loud although muffled by her hand. “How are you still sitting her drinking wine and not like, getting into a witness protection program?!”

“She’s not gonna come for me,” Yves insists. “She’s working for an organization that probably pays her millions to kill important people. I’m way below her paygrade. Besides, lots of people have investigated her cases before. I don’t think she’s worried about me actually catching her, more like she’s taunting me or something.”

Jinsol’s biting her lip, but her expression grows less and less worried. “Well, that makes sense,” she says, like she’s trying to convince herself of it. Yves hopes she’s doing a better job than she is trying to convince herself.

“Yeah, it’s just … a lot, and I really wanted to tell someone,” Yves says, looking down. Jinsol grabs her hand and squeezes it firmly, making Yves look back at her.

“Well, I’m glad you told me. Jesus, that’s a lot to keep to yourself,” Jinsol says, shaking her head. “You know you don’t have to do this, right? You’re not obligated to find her because of what happened.”

“It’s not that,” Yves says roughly, even though it is, a little bit. “I know I don’t have to do this, but I want to. I just … somehow, I feel like we’re close to a breakthrough.”

“If you insist,” Jinsol says, heaving a sigh. “So, what, you’re not even a little scared?”

“Of course I am,” Yves says truthfully, “but with this job that’s always a part of it, isn’t it?”

“Not if you’re the receptionist,” Jinsol snorts, and they both burst into laughter, the heaviness in Yves’ heart successfully lifted.

It really is late so Jinsol leaves shortly after, hugging Yves tightly and promising to call and check up on her every now and then. Thankfully, Yves is also exhausted enough that she falls easily into sleep herself, thankfully with no dreams. She’d been having trouble sleeping lately; it turns out that when you see your first dead body (or four), you tend to have nightmares about it. Who would have known?

The next morning she’s woken far earlier than she’d like, by the incessant sound of her phone ringing. Yves shoves her head back under the pillow and feels along her bedside table till she finds her phone, buzzing and beeping annoyingly. She declines the call, and enjoys the ten seconds of silence before it starts ringing again.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Yves sticks her head out from under the pillow and picks up the call. “Hello?” Now that she’s awake, she can feel the faint pounding in her head from drinking all that wine last night.

“It’s Vivi. Meet us at the office in half an hour.” Then the line goes dead, leaving Yves to spit out a long string of curses into the empty air before rolling herself out of bed and into some clothes.

By the time she arrives, Yves’ hangover is even worse despite the aspirin she’d swallowed and the sunglasses she’s wearing. She storms up the fire escape, the pounding of her boots against the metal making her headache even worse, and all she can think is  _ this better be fucking good _ .

It really is.

“We're pretty sure we found her,” Olivia exclaims as soon as Yves walks through the door. 

“What? How?” Yves says, her brain struggling to jump into detective mode. “Where is she?”

“Berlin,” Vivi says, and she’s actually beaming, a full proper smile. “It was all thanks to the software program Olivia’s been working on to track and compare murders with similar patterns to our girl’s.”

“It was nothing,” Olivia says, but she’s grinning just as wide as Vivi.

“Well, great!” Yves says, feeling the corners of her own mouth tug up too. “Um. Now what?”

Olivia and Vivi exchange glances, and then the elder speaks. “This is where you come in. The kill was just reported a few hours ago, and we think she’s still there. Recently she’s been leaving more and more time between kills, leaving us to assume that she stays in the location for a few days before moving to the next target.”

“We want you to go to Berlin, tonight,” Olivia continues. “Meet with local police, look at the crime scene, etcetera.”

“Just me?” Yves says, blinking. “You guys won’t come?”

They’re both silent before Olivia says, matter-of-factly, “you’re our bait, Yves.”

“Oh,” says Yves, because she doesn’t really know what to say to that.

“We just think she’ll approach you if she knows you’re in Berlin,” Vivi amends. “Which she probably will, since she seems to know about this operation. But don’t worry, Yves, you won’t be alone. You’ll have MI6 on your side.”

“Wait, MI6? They know about this?” Yves asks, bewildered.

“Not all of them as a collective, but I’ve been keeping in touch with one agent in particular. You used to work with him, actually: Kim Doyoung?” 

“Wait. Doyoung as in my former boss Doyoung?” Yves asks incredulously. “The one who fired me for pursuing this very woman? That Doyoung is coming on this trip with me?”

“That’s exactly why he insisted on it, actually,” Vivi explains. “He feels bad for what he had to do, and he wants to offer his support to you now.”

“Oh,” Yves says, softened a little. “I suppose that’ll do.”

“Great. You’d better get home and start packing, then,” Vivi says, producing a ticket from her briefcase and handing it to Yves. “Your train leaves tonight.”

Yves accepts the ticket, staring at her own name printed on it. “Is it wise to still be using my real name? What if she finds out I’m coming?” Then, before they can answer, it dawns on her: “we want her to know that.”

“Exactly,” Olivia says, tapping her nose. “You’re getting the hang of it, sharkbait.”

“If that was meant to be motivational, it didn’t work,” Yves says dryly, feeling her headache coming back in full force.

Hangover or no hangover, though, she has a train to catch in less than twelve hours (at least four of which she intends on spending asleep), so she goes home to start packing. She isn’t sure what to bring — what exactly does one wear to potentially meet a serial killer? — and ends up deciding to just dress based on the weather. Berlin is supposed to be quite chilly this time of year.

Before she leaves, she gives one final glance around her apartment, thinking morbidly that this may well be the last time she ever sees it. Then she turns off the light and locks the door, plunging the apartment into dark silence.

**B E R L I N**

Although Yves works in London, she’s never really had the opportunity to explore the rest of Europe. Berlin’s always been at the top of her list, so she’s happy to be here now, but she wishes her first impression of the city wasn’t right after a 14 hour train ride. She’s tired, hungry, sweaty, and she’s had to spend more time than she ever hoped in very close proximity to her ex-boss.

To his credit, Doyoung had apologized immediately once she saw him, which definitely soothed Yves’ pride quite a bit. They tried to talk for a little while, even playing cards when they got really bored, but eventually it became awkward enough that Yves just leaned her head on the window and pretended to be asleep. She actually had drifted off at some point, and now she’s blinking in the bright Berlin sunlight, the sharp wind whipping at her cheeks and forcing her awake.

“It’s fucking cold,” Doyoung gripes, dragging his luggage behind him. “Let’s get a cab to the hotel.”

“It’s only a ten minute walk,” Yves protests, but Doyoung’s already shaking his head.

“Not a chance. Hey, taxi!” he calls, waving down a car, but it zooms past them without second notice. This is how the next four or five attempts go as well; there are so many new arrivals flooding out of the train station that it’s hard to catch a cab’s attention. Finally, Yves ends up spotting an empty cab across the street and she dashes out into the middle of traffic to wave it down. Her kamikaze mission actually works, and she gets into the cab and directs the driver over to Doyoung.

When they pull up to his side, though, he’s only lugging his own suitcase. “Wait,” Yves says with a frown, sticking her head out of the window. “Where’s my suitcase? Weren’t you watching it?”

“No? You didn’t tell me to,” Doyoung says, getting in the cab and closing the door behind him.

“Wait, no! We have to find my suitcase!” Yves protests. 

“Ma’am, it’s probably long gone,” the cabbie says apologetically. “The train stations are always full of pickpockets looking to steal luggage.”

Yves flops back in her seat with a dejected sigh. “It had my favorite scarf in it! It was blue with little white clouds. And I’ll never find it again cause I got it at a thrift shop. Damn it.”

“Well, you can cry about it in our nice, warm hotel room,” Doyoung says, much happier now that he’s in from the cold.

Back at the station, Lip watches from afar as Yves’ cab pulls away. She loves crowded places; they allow her to be even stealthier than she usually is. She's a pro at making herself invisible, slipping in between crowds like air. Not one person had noticed as she walked by and grabbed Yves’ suitcase from behind her. Her heart thuds when she remembers how close she was to the woman; for a second as she passed, her face was only inches away from Yves’ long, silky hair. She could have reached out. Touched it. 

But no — this chase is a slow one. She’s no stranger to self-indulgence, but she refuses to be greedy and spoil this for herself. The reward is so much better when you have to wait for it. 

Back in her hotel room, Lip tears into the suitcase impatiently, curious to see what Yves has. The clothes are normal, boring even, but they’re fascinating to Lip because they're _hers_. She holds up each item and images how it would look on Yves, how her hands would smooth down the fabric, tie the strings and do up the buttons. She even puts on a few of the items and giggles at how they fit all wrong, clearly meant for someone taller.

From the bottom of the suitcase Lip pulls out a thick scarf, bundled up in itself. As she shakes it out to its full length, she’s hit with the most delectable scent: apples, and mint, and lemon, and— and something dark. Something red. She loops the scarf once round her throat and then wraps it around her face, breathing Yves in. It’s intoxicating, making her head lighter with each lungful she pulls in.

She doesn’t even realize she’s been pulling the scarf tighter and tighter around her neck until her legs give way and she falls to the bed in a heap, gasping as her body hurries to draw in air.

Lip swallows, her throat dry as she tries to catch her breath. To have to sit around and watch Yves from afar, knowing what she looks like, what she smells like … it’s infuriating. She fucking hates self-discipline.

Still, she keeps her word. For the next two days, she follows Yves around Berlin in a various number of disguises. She goes to the police statement to get a statement, checks out the crime scene, all the usual, but she also goes to fancy restaurants and buys chocolate with that man she came with. Lip knows it’s probably just another agent, but they seem comfortable with each other, and it makes an ugly feeling burn deep in Lip’s stomach. She’s used to feeling violent urges, but they’re particularly graphic when it comes to this man.

Of course, it’s him who ends up ruining everything. After what looks a little too much like a date, she decides to follow Yves down the stairs into the metro station. It’s very empty, with only a handful of people scattered here and there. Lip should have walked right out there and then — it’s too conspicuous — but she’s captivated once again by the back of Yves’ head, right in front of her. Those long, glossy tresses. How Lip longs to run her fingers through it, caress her scalp, and then pull on it hard and watch her wince.

The metro arrives, whizzing past the tracks, and when Yves steps into the carriage Lip moves to follow, as if in a trance. She’s rudely stopped by a firm hand grabbing her shoulder, and when she jerks around to see who it is, she recognizes the man — the other agent.

“Sorry, I just love your scarf,” he says, too brightly. “Where’d you get it?”

Lip touches her neck automatically. It was particularly cold today, so she’d opted to wear Yves’ scarf. “Just a small store off el Costa Dorado,” she lies distractedly, tries to move forward again, but he holds her back with surprising strength.

“Do you remember the name?” he asks.

“No,” she says irritably, but he’s not done talking.

“Are you sure?” he presses. “Because I think my sister-in-law would like it so much, and their anniversary is coming up, you know—”

The doors close and the subway rushes away in a roar, taking Yves with it.

Lip yanks her arm out of his grip. “I said I don’t remember!” she growls, and he raises his eyebrows and backs off innocently. Lip backs up against the wall and folds her arms, seething silently. This man has pissed her off one too many times. 

She’s not surprised when he follows her onto the next train. That interaction was far too suspicious; he must have recognized Yves’ scarf, and now that he suspects it’s her he’ll want to track her down. He keeps his distance on the carriage, looking nonchalant, but then his phone rings. He answers it with a hand over his mouth, but unluckily for him, Lip has the hearing of a bat.

“Yeah, sorry, I had to stay back … listen, I’m onto something. Some _ one _ . Get off at the next stop and turn around, I need you to follow me … I’ll turn my location on, okay?” He hangs up, and Lip has to stop her mouth from twitching into a grin. He’s leading Yves right to her. Suddenly, she’s not that mad at him anymore. She’s about to have a lot of fun with him.

Lip stays on the metro for a few more stops before getting off, strolling casually up the stairs. She doesn’t need to check if he’s following her; she knows he is. As soon as she’s out onto the street, she breaks out into a run, giggling when she can hear his stupid dress shoes clacking behind her.

As a trained assassin, she’s clearly more athletic than this desk-sitting detective, so it would be incredibly easy for her to lose him. That’s not what she wants, though; she wants him to chase her. So she slows down when she turns a corner, or darts back into his line of vision if he loses sight of her. It’s fun for a while, but she’s getting bored and wants to move onto the grand finale.

Like a gift from God, the next corner she turns brings her right in front of a three-floor club, lit up in flashing neon lights and bumping with music that can be heard even from the street. She dashes in, getting away with flashing a flirtatious smile at the doorman, and laughs when she sees that he makes the man stop and show his ID.

Inside, the music is deafening and Lip can feel it in her bones. There’s a huge crowd in the middle of the dance floor, swaying as if all controlled by one mind, but Lip waits till the man gets in and can see her before she jumps in. She weaves through the crowd, squeezing past countless warm, dancing bodies, and then finally she feels his hand grip her wrist. She turns to look him in the face before sliding a knife out of her back pocket and stabbing him in the stomach, burying it up to the hilt.

His eyes bulge and he screams as she pulls him closer and twists the knife, but it can’t be heard over the electronic dance music. No one’s paying attention to them, anyway; they just look like another couple, holding each other in an embrace, and everyone’s probably too drunk or drugged up to care even if they did see. She holds him close for a moment, relishing the look in his eyes as his consciousness slowly slips away, and when he starts to buckle under her grip she leaves, letting him fall to the floor only to be trampled under the feet of the happily ignorant club-goers. If they do end up noticing him, they’ll assume he’s passed out drunk and keep dancing.

Lip remembers what he said about the location tracking on his phone and thinks about taking it and dumping it somewhere, but she doesn’t. Instead she goes to the bar and orders a drink, watches the door. It’s not long before Yves bursts through it, panting and sweating like she’d ran all the way. Lip watches as she scans the crowd frantically, clearly looking for her friend, and then — then their eyes meet, across the room, over the head of the buzzing throng.

Time slows down for Lip, and everything that isn’t Yves fades out. She can see every emotion play out along Yves’ traitorous features: recognition, shock, fear. That one makes a thrill run up Lip’s spine, forcing her to sit up straight. Slowly, deliberately, never breaking eye contact, she draws her finger across her throat and points to where the man is lying amidst the crowd. 

Yves moves  _ fast _ , shoving through the crowd hard enough to send people reeling, but it’s far too late for her friend. When she sees his body, limp on the floor, she gives an agonized scream, falling to her knees and grabbing him desperately. Lip is upset she can’t hear the sound; she wonders whether it would be high and shrill, or low and guttural. Either way, she knows it would sound beautiful.

Yves’ eyes snap up again to meet Lip’s, and instead of the devastation or horror Lip is expecting to see, she’s surprised at how  _ livid  _ she looks. Her eyes burn with rage, her lips pulled back in a furious snarl even as tears stream down her face. Lip has studied human expressions very carefully in order to be able to emulate them herself, and the look on Yves’ face says one thing only:  _ I’m going to fucking kill you _ . Lip has to squeeze her legs tight against the pang of arousal that comes with that thought.

When Yves starts moving towards her, looking especially irate in her now-bloodstained shirt, Lip takes off. As much as she wants to wait and see what sweet little Yves would do to her, she knows when it’s time to go. She makes a mad dash for the stairs, taking them three at a time while Yves is still struggling through the crowd. Once she’s on the second floor, she takes the fire exit and escapes out into the night, already three streets over by the time Yves has reached the top of the stairs.

Lip slumps over in a darkly-lit alleyway, bending over with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. It’s not the run that has her adrenaline rushing. It’s Yves. Her eyes, her face, her hair. That angry, furious look. Lip is no stranger to obsession, but hers usually focus on things, places, feelings. Never people. She’s never felt this way about another person in her life before, and the rush is addictive. She’s already thinking about when she can next see Yves.

Unfortunately, her moment of euphoria is soon interrupted.

“Take out your wallet and don’t move,” a gruff voice snarls in German, right by her ear, and she feels the cold barrel of a gun press against the back of her head. Lip laughs and kicks her leg up backwards, landing square between the man’s legs. He wheezes and falls to the ground, the gun clattering a few feet away from them. Lip doesn’t hurry to go fetch it, sauntering casually while the man doubles over in pain.

“You picked the wrong fucking day, buddy,” she says, before shooting him directly in the middle of his forehead. She cocks her head in surprise, examining the bullet wound. Her freehand targeting has really improved. So has her German, actually. It’s just a day full of wins for Lip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip doyoung... sorry i had to do you like that king 😔✊ we now have contact tho!! also this is likely gonna be 5 chapters not 4!!


	3. i'm not calling you a liar (just don't lie to me)

**L O N D O N**

Yves sits in the interrogation room again. The exact same one from last time, she thinks; she recognizes that stain at the corner of the ceiling. She looks at the sketch artist, watching her expectantly, and takes a sip of water to soothe her dry throat before she begins.

“Her hair was brown, but not dark brown. More like … honey? It was loose, down to her shoulders. She was slim, maybe a little shorter than me, maybe in her early 20s, I think. She has very pronounced features — bold, but delicate. Her mouth is small, rosebud-shaped, and she has a tall nose bridge, and her eyes … wide, sort of catlike. She had this look in them, like … like she was totally focused but almost completely inaccessible.”

The sketch artist blinks, looks down at his empty pad and then up at her. “Uh … let’s start with something simple. Race?”

“... Asian. Did you get any of that?” Yves frowns.

“Sorry, sorry. Small nose?” he asks.

“Tall,” she corrects, growing irritable. “Can we take a break? My blood sugar’s getting low.”

“Sure,” he says, relieved for the interruption himself, and she leaves the room, rubbing her temples. In a few moments, Jinsol exits the opposite room.

“More like your blood pressure’s getting high,” she jokes softly, bumping shoulders with Yves and following her as she walks to the vending machine.

“I knew you were spying on me in that two way mirror,” Yves grumbles, but bumps her shoulder back and gives her a tired smile. It’s been hard for them both in the weeks since Doyoung’s death, but they’ve been leaning on each other for support, and Yves has never been more grateful to have Jinsol as a friend.

“So,” Jinsol asks as Yves surveys the lit-up food items in the vending machine in front of her. “Have you heard back from … you know?”

Yves swallows bitterly at the question she’s been avoiding thinking about. “Not since I got back,” she says curtly, punching in the number for a plain chocolate bar. It’s been a hellish couple of weeks: having to deal with the police in Berlin right after watching her friend die, and then the nightmare of flying all the way to Seoul to attend his funeral. She knew she could have excused herself out of it, but the guilt would have eaten at her. It already is; he never would have been in that situation if it weren’t for her.

To make matters worse, she’s heard nothing but silence from Vivi. They’ve been in contact, of course, to explain what happened and arrange flights for Yves, but she’s been back in London for four days now and they haven’t given her any updates about the status of their investigation. Just Vivi asking her to go give a statement to the official police, so they can update their records (which must be painfully bare, because they don’t know anything except what she looks like, which can easily be changed).

Yves wolfs down her chocolate in minutes, not bothering to try and enjoy it. Somehow, her mood is now worse than when she left the interrogation room, so she figures she might as well go back. Bidding her goodbyes to Jinsol, she walks down the hallway, already dreading seeing the inside of that horrid, bland room.

**P A R I S**

“Suspended?! What is this, fucking high school?” 

Haseul looks at her impassively, unimpressed. “Since you’re behaving like a prepubescent brat, it may well be,” she says coolly. “See, Lip, I warned you about your reckless behavior and you paid no mind. This is the result, and it’s non-negotiable. I may have a soft spot for you, but the people I work for — the people _ you _work for — certainly don’t.”

Lip grinds her teeth, but she knows there’s no point arguing. Even she’s not stupid enough to mess with the organization they work for. Instead, she pouts and asks, “so what does that even mean?”

“No killing,” Haseul says, counting off on her fingers. “No crime. No drawing any attention to yourself otherwise. No leaving the country. Or the city. In fact, a five-mile radius. And I’m confiscating all your weapons.”

“You know I could kill someone with a plastic fork,” Lip scoffs, folding her arms petulantly.

“But you won’t,” Haseul counters, “because you are going to be on your best behavior until further notice. Because I’m telling you, Jungeun, your only other option is expulsion, and you don’t want that at all.”

Lip recoils, the sound of her real name shocking her more than Haseul’s threat. “Alright,” she says, subdued, and Haseul tilts her chin in satisfaction. It doesn’t stop Lip from making faces behind Haseul’s back as she completely clears out her weapon stash.

When Haseul leaves, Lip immediately changes into a pastel pink pantsuit and goes out for some shopping. She can already feel a tantrum building inside of her, but she’ll deal with that later, probably in the form of excessive drinking. For now, it’s time for her other main coping mechanism: retail therapy.

Of course, usually she’d steal, but she’s not stupid enough to disobey Haseul’s rules. Before suspending her, Haseul had stormed into Lip’s house and forced her to watch a tape, angrily saying, “this is where your idiocy has gotten you!” The tape was of Yves; Lip had started slightly when she saw her face appear on the screen, her heartbeat speeding up.

It was a recording from an interrogation room, where Yves was describing Lip to a sketch artist. Of course she knows that this is dangerous for her, that nobody’s ever lived long enough to identify her and now they probably have a sketch of her, but all she can think about is the way Yves described her. Catlike eyes. Rosebud lips. It had made her examine her features extra close in the mirror this morning, and her conclusion — as always — was _ god, I’m fucking gorgeous _. Yves clearly thinks so too, and the thought makes Lip shiver.

So although Haseul had warned her to stay away from Yves, and although she knows that’s the safe, logical thing to do, her mind is already made up otherwise. Yves has occupied her every thought since they last saw each other, and Lip knows that she _ has _to see her again. And she definitely intends to — this shopping trip is only the first part of the plan.

**L O N D O N**

When Yves finally leaves the police station, the threatening gray clouds from earlier have given way to a true northern downpour. She’s brought her umbrella, but the wind whips the falling rain in every direction so that she still somehow ends up soaked to the bone. As if this day couldn’t get any fucking worse.

But clearly it can, because when she finally enters the shelter of her building and climbs the winding steps to her apartment, there’s something waiting for her on the doorstep: the suitcase she lost in Berlin. In all the commotion she’d forgotten all about its disappearance, but now, it seems like too much to be coincidence. 

Yves looks around nervously, but of course there’s nobody in the narrow stairwell except for her. Feeling a chill that has nothing to do with the rain outside, she grabs her suitcase and rushes into her apartment, deadbolting the door behind her.

Her fingers shake as she unzips the suitcase, and a little belatedly she thinks, _ fuck, what if it’s a bomb?! _ It’s not, though; it’s just clothes, but definitely _ not _the ones she packed. Instead, her suitcase has been stuffed to the brim with designer clothing, brand spanking new with the tags still on. She makes the mistake at looking at one of the price tags, and decides to rip the rest off without looking. She doesn’t want to have a heart attack this young.

Out of curiosity, she puts on one of the items that she picks out at random. It’s a high-waisted skirt, made out of a deep burgundy velvety fabric that feels beautifully soft and hugs her hips perfectly. Of course, she couldn’t _just_ wear the skirt, so she pairs it with a flowy white blouse with lace details. 

Then she tries on a few more, just to see. After all, she’s never going to get to wear anything this expensive ever again. Plus, every single item in there fits her like a glove, as if it was tailor made. By the time she gets to the bottom of the suitcase, she realizes there’s one more item tucked away amidst the clothing: a bottle of pale pink perfume labeled _ 006 Rosebud _. It’s attached to a note, which Yves picks up with shaky hands. It reads

_ SORRY BABY x _

signed with a deep red kiss mark and a name: _ Lip. _

Yves knows she should be angry. She should be fuming. This woman — this monster killed Doyoung in cold blood, and she has the nerve to say _sorry_? She should be enraged. But when she thinks of _her _writing the note out (_baby_), and pressing her lips to it, and picking out all these clothes for Yves (_thinking about her_), and even the look in her eyes when Yves saw her over that crowded dance floor— all she feels is ridiculously turned on.

She flings the clothes back into the suitcase and shoves it away like it’s on fire. It might as well be; she feels hot all over, burning with shame as much as arousal. She wonders if she’s going insane. Maybe all the trauma she’s been through lately is finally catching up with her and she’s hyperfixating on this woman to cope.

(Or, the truth she doesn’t want to admit to herself: despite everything, she feels an inexplicable magnetism pulling her towards this woman. When she allows herself to think about her seeing Yves in one of those pretty dresses, running her hands all over and then slipping it off, she feels so faint she has to take a freezing cold shower to drown out her thoughts.)

Afterwards, she lays in bed under mounds of warm blankets, trying to block out the cold and her consciousness, unknowing that somewhere under the stars in Paris, Lip is trying to fall asleep and thinking about her too.

* * *

It’s been close to a month now since Berlin, and Yves is on edge, to say the least. Vivi’s only contacted her once since then, to see how she was doing (and probably to check if she’s still alive). When Yves had asked about the investigation Vivi shut it down curtly, saying it was currently on hold since their operation had been exposed. Yves is probably overreacting, but something in Vivi’s tone seems like an accusation, like she’s reminding Yves that once again everything went sideways and it was all her fault.

It makes feel Yves guilty, but also indignant, which is why she chooses not to tell Vivi about the mysterious return of her suitcase. She figures it’s not even that relevant to the case anyway, and since Vivi’s keeping her out of the loop then maybe she should do the same. On another level that she doesn’t admit to herself, she knows it’s partially because Vivi would want to take in the contents of the suitcase as evidence, and Yves doesn’t want that. She still hasn’t taken it out from under the bed, but it constantly sits at the back of her mind.

One day, feeling especially bored and going out of her mind without nothing to do, she figures she should finally take the suitcase out and go through it properly. She figures she might as well auction off some of the pricier items online, since she barely has any income nowadays, but as she’s rifling through them, she quickly decides against it. They could be stolen, for all she knows, and she doesn’t want to get involved. But it’s really for the same reason that she didn’t want to give the stuff over to Vivi: it’s _ hers _. Lip gave it to her, bought it for her, and something about that makes her want to preen.

So instead, Yves starts folding the clothes up to put away in her closet. When she shakes out a small black dress, a notecard falls out. She freezes up as she sees the white square flutter to the floor — this definitely isn’t the same one from before. (Although the suitcase has stayed under the bed, she’s kept that note at the bottom of her bedside drawer. She doesn’t look at it, but whenever she opens the drawer the soft scent wafts out and makes her head feel cottony.)

Abandoning the task at hand, Yves reaches for the note and flips it over, seeing the familiar sharp handwriting: _ Dinner? Wear this. _ Then there’s a date, which — oh, fuck. It’s five days from today. Yves drops the card to the floor again, thanking every god that there is that she found this before then, and immediately starts freaking out. _ Dinner? _ What the hell does that mean? Does she expect Yves to meet her somewhere? But no, there’s no address. Unless there’s _ another _note hidden somewhere amongst the other clothes …

(She pauses her meltdown to continue folding the clothes and ensure that this was not the case.)

Then, Yves remembers that Lip must know her address. After all, she sent the suitcase directly to her doorstep. Lip is probably going to show up right here. 

Yves jumps up, feeling excitement course through her in a way she hasn’t in weeks, and instantly dashes to her phone. She dials the office number, tapping her foot impatiently as the phone rings for what seems like forever.

“Hello?” a voice answers, but it’s not the one she’s expecting.

“Olivia?” Yves says, pausing her incessant walking. “What are you doing in the office so late? Where’s Vivi?”

“It’s only like 5 pm,” Olivia points out. “Vivi’s out doing damage control with the feds, unfortunately.”

“Oh,” Yves says, deflating slightly. “How’s that going.”

OIivia sighs, and Yves can picture her running a hand through her hair. “I’ll be honest with you, Yves, they’re not happy. Vivi’s trying to convince them that it isn’t the case, but … they’re suspicious that you’re involved in all this.”

“Of course I am, I’m working for you guys,” Yves says, confused. 

“No, involved as in working for the other side.”

“For L—” Yves barely catches herself, remembering that she’s not supposed to know the killer’s name. “For the assassin? How?!”

“Well, look at it this way. She kills Liu Yangyang and everyone in the wing— except you. Then she uses your name as an alias in a murder. Then you run into her again, and once more you make it out alive while someone else doesn’t. Now, even though she knows for sure that you’ve seen her and can identify her, she hasn’t made even the slightest attempt on your life. It doesn’t look great for you.”

Yves has to take a seat on the couch, all her previous energy drained. “Olivia, that’s ridiculous. I’m just— I _ was _just an assistant, I have nothing to do with any of this!”

“I know that, of course,” Olivia assures her. “And so does Vivi, which is why she’s been fighting hard for you. I’m just being honest with you, letting you know what’s going on right now. I know it must be shitty being in the dark.”

“Thanks,” Yves says, feeling worse and worse. She feels bad for assuming Vivi was intentionally keeping her uninformed when she was actually working to defend her, but now she knows there’s no way she can just casually tell them that she has a fucking dinner date with the assassin that the feds suspect her of working with.

“Sure. So, what’s up with you?”

“Um, nothing much. I was just calling to check up on the case, you know,” Yves lies. “I’ll let you get back to work now.” She hangs up before Olivia can reply, tossing the phone onto the table and sinking back into the couch, her head in her hands.

_ Well _ , she thinks hysterically, _ at least I don’t have to worry about what I’m going to wear. That’s the worst part of every date _.

Which is wrong, actually. The worst part of every date is the wait, and it’s no different this time. On the day of, Yves realizes that Lip hasn’t actually given her a time; she just said _ dinner _ . To Yves, this roughly translates to _ start worrying around 2 pm. _Then she realizes that she doesn’t actually have any dinner prepared, so she has to make a mad dash to the grocery store. She manages to put together a nice rice and chicken meal, something that doesn’t say ‘I haven’t eaten something that didn’t come from a takeout box in three weeks’.

When the sun starts to set outside, she decides it’s time to put on the dress. She’s looked at it what must be dozens of times already, but she hasn’t put it on till right now. She does it facing away from the mirror, feeling the anticipation build up inside her as she slips the fabric over her body. As expected, it fits like a second skin. She runs her fingers through her hair afterwards, wondering whether to style it into an updo, but she thinks Lip will appreciate it if she just wears it down.

When she finally turns to look at herself in the mirror, she has to admit: she looks incredible. It’s a simple black dress with a halter top and white highlights, but the simplicity is what makes it so beautiful. She turns, admiring every inch of herself from every angle, smoothing her hands over the silky fabric. She wonders if this is how Lip feels all the time, this glamorous and sexy and … _ powerful _. 

Her little trance is broken by a small noise from down the hall. Probably just the pipes creaking, or the neighbors slamming a door — a background sound she usually would take no note of, but everything sounds ominous when you’re expecting a serial killer to drop by at any moment. She inches out of her room and down the hall, suddenly feeling out of breath in the tight dress, but when she reaches the door she’s relieved to see that it’s still locked.

Then, Yves turns around and sees her — Lip, in the flesh and in Yves’ living room. She’s wearing a tailored blue suit with her hair back in a slick ponytail, and she’s shorter up close. She was looking at one of the family pictures Yves has on the coffee table, but when she sees Yves frozen and staring at her like a deer in the headlights, she puts the picture back down slowly.

“Don’t run,” she says softly, in a vaguely accented tone. Yves honestly wasn’t thinking about it — she's too surprised to think about anything — but as soon as Lip says it, her primal instincts kick in and she realizes _ holy fuck a serial killer is in my apartment, I need to run! _Which is what she does, stupidly, taking off back down the hallway. Hearing Lip instantly speeding up behind her, she takes a sharp left into the bathroom and tries to shut the door behind her, but Lip is far too strong. She throws the door open with ease, and Yves goes with it, her back hitting the wall.

“Help!” she starts to scream frantically, dropping to the floor on her butt and crawling into the corner. “Somebody, help, please!” She knows it’s a long shot, and that none of her neighbors would care even if they did hear, but at this point it’s the fear acting, not her.

Yves screams louder when Lip steps forward and grips her throat tightly. “Stop screaming! I’m not going to hurt you,” she shouts firmly, furrowing her eyebrows in annoyance, but it’s no use; Yves is growing hysterical at this point, shrieking like a banshee. 

With a pained sigh, Lip pushes Yves into the bathtub and sits firmly atop her. “Stop it, _ now _! Stop!” she instructs, yelling to be heard over Yves’ screaming. “I’m not going to hurt you, Yves.”

“You’re hurting me right now!” Yves shrieks back, with much more force than either of them had expected. Lip blinks, taken aback, and then scowls.

“You need to calm down,” she says, and then turns on the faucet. The freezing water hits Yves right between the eyes, and at first she continues to scream harshly at the coldness and the water running down her face and into her mouth, but eventually Lip’s plan works and Yves is stunned into silent submission, save for her gasping breaths.

Lip turns the faucet off, takes a deep breath, and speaks extra clearly like Yves is a child: “I don't want to hurt you. I just want to have dinner with you.” When Yves doesn’t respond, just stares at her with wide eyes, she prompts, “do you trust me?”

“Of fucking course not,” Yves gasps, blinking the water from her eyes.

Lip's mouth twitches slightly. "I deserved that. Alright, you don't have to trust me, but clearly you got my note and you wore my dress and the cops aren't here, so... have dinner with me. Okay?"

Yves exhales shakily, and it might just be the cold getting to her brain but she whimpers, "okay", even though she sounds anything but okay.

“Okay? Okay! Okay,” Lip says, looking uncertain herself, and then climbs out of the bathtub. She offers a hand to Yves, who’s forced to accept because she’s not quite sure she can get out alone. Lip continues to hold her hand tightly, even after she’s helped steady Yves back to her feet.

Yves snatches her hand away, feeling hot despite her shivering body. “I need to dry my hair,” she says shortly. “And change. I’m all wet.”

“Sorry,” Lip says, although she certainly doesn’t look it as she unabashedly lets her eyes rove over Yves’ body. “You look incredible in that dress. Shame you have to take it off.”

“Well, whose fault is that?” Yves grumbles, storming off to her bedroom. Lip follows closely behind, smiling to herself. Yves is cute when she tries to be tough.

Lip sits down on the bed, and Yves gives her a pointed look. “Can you go? I’d like some privacy.”

“How do I know you won’t try to make a break down that fire escape?” Lip challenges, nodding towards the large window. Yves tries not to let the disappointment show on her face, because damn it, that was exactly her plan.

“Well, at least close your eyes,” Yves says, but Lip’s already shaking her head.

“Can’t let you out of my sight,” she says with a shrug, her intense gaze never leaving Yves for a moment. Blushing and irritated, Yves uses the closet door to shield herself from Lip’s eyes (those _ eyes _) as she strips off the ruined dress. She wraps her hair in a towel, and in an attempt to stave off the cold that she knows is coming now, she opts for thick, woolly pyjamas. Overall, the look is decidedly unsexy, which Yves is really aiming for because the thrumming tension that she currently feels between them is disturbingly high.

Lip smiles when she sees Yves emerge. “Cute,” she remarks, and Yves tries not to think about how her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Thank you,” Yves says, awkwardly sitting on the other side of the bed. “Do you want to … have dinner?”

“I like it in here,” Lip says, looking around. “Do you live alone?”

“Yes,” Yves says, and then instantly regrets it. She’s basically inviting Lip to hack her up and put her in the freezer. “Um, no. I have a roommate, should be home any second now.”

“Right. And where do they sleep? In here with you?” Lip says with a raised eyebrow. Shit, that’s right. There’s only one bedroom. Yves hopes she never actually commits a crime, because she can’t lie for shit.

“Fine. I’m alone. What are you going to do? Kill me?” Yves challenges, although she’s genuinely terrified of exactly that.

“No, Yves,” Lip says patiently. “If I were going to do that, I would have done it a very long time ago. _ Very _.”

“That doesn’t help,” Yves says, growing frantic, and without warning Lip reaches over to take her hand.

“You wore the perfume,” Lip says, lifting the inside of Yves’ wrist to her nose. Whatever Yves was going to say next fizzles out, her mind going almost comically blank.

“Uh, yeah,” Yves says faintly. She’d put on a couple of spritzes just for the sake of trying it out. And now Lip is … smelling her. As if it couldn’t get any more bizarre, Lip then turns her hand over and kisses her knuckles before letting it go, like some sort of prince.

“What do you want from me?” Yves asks, and it’s supposed to be demanding but it comes out rather breathy. 

Lip tilts her head, watches Yves through her eyelashes. “What would you let me have?”

Yves swallows roughly, breaking eye contact in favor of looking at a spot somewhere on Lip’s forehead. “Stop that,” she says, as sternly as she can. “I want a real answer. Why are you here?”

Lip’s expression flickers, and for a moment Yves sees something real behind that mask. “I wanted to see you.”

“Why?” Yves presses.

Lip pauses, her lip wobbles, and then her face is crumpling. “I need somebody to help me,” she says quietly, her voice trembling. “I don’t wanna do this anymore. I … I know I’m not normal, I don’t f-feel things like others do, but I didn’t want to hurt your partner. I don’t want to hurt people. But if I don’t do what they say…” she hiccups, wiping roughly at her nose. “I have nowhere to go, Yves.”

Yves had expected this to go in several different ways, but she couldn’t have expected _ this, _Lip breaking down and crying on her bed. She reaches out again to grab Lip’s hand, and says earnestly, “I’ll help you, Lip. You can start over, you don’t have to do this anymore…” she trails off when she realizes that Lip’s shoulders are shaking with laughter, not sobs, and she lets go of Lip’s hand like she’s been scalded.

“You’re an asshole,” she seethes, feeling like a complete idiot for falling for it. Lip laughs openly now, delicately wiping the tears from her cheeks. 

“Sorry, baby,” Lip says, and hearing those words aloud sends a sharp thrill down Yves’ spine. “But you were really willing to help me? After everything …” she shakes her head, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You’re something, Yves.”

Yves really hates Lip, because even though she _ wants _ to feel angry, the only thing she feels when she looks at the woman’s sparkling eyes and sideways grin is … something that definitely isn’t anger. “Was _any_ of that true?” she scoffs, folding her arms.

Lip tilts her head. “Sure. I don’t feel things like other people, that’s true. But Yves, the way I feel about you. It’s…” she pauses and shakes her head, frustrated that she can’t find the words. “I don’t know what it is, or how to describe it, but you’re all I can think about these days. _ That _isn’t normal for me.”

Yves stays silent, even though her heart is thumping out of her chest because she feels the exact same. Lip practically lives in her head all day, from the moment she wakes to the moment she sleeps, and having her right here in front of Yves is weakening her resolve more than she can say.

Then, Lip inches closer, forcing Yves to look up at her. “I don’t want to hurt you, Yves,” she says softly, and although she’s clearly a professional liar, her eyes seem sincere. “I really don’t, I just … I just want to be close to you. Even if it’s dangerous. Even if it kills me.”

With every word Yves can feel herself falling deeper, into Lip’s trap, into her eyes, dark and deep like a bottomless well. Yves feels it, too, the inexplicable need to be close to Lip. Now that there’s so little distance between them, she wants more than anything to close it. So when Lip reaches out to touch her face, she doesn’t make a move to stop her. Instead, though, Lip bypasses her cheek and tugs the towel off her head, letting her hair fall freely. It’s damp and wavy, and Yves feels she must look like a drowned rodent, but Lip just looks at her with wonder like a child’s first time seeing snow.

“Beautiful,” Lip breathes, and Yves can’t take it any longer, the loaded atmosphere between them that’s so thick she can feel it plugging up her throat, making her faint. Before she can do anything to ruin it like think, she bridges the gap between their bodies, kissing Lip firmly. 

If there was any semblance of rational thought left in Yves, it goes out of the window the moment their lips touch. This woman that she hasn’t been able to get off her mind for the last month, she’s right here, soft and warm and _ real _. Everything else is uncertain, confusing, but Yves knows for a fact that she wants Lip, and Lip wants her back. So, she pushes aside the voice that sounds suspiciously like her conscience, and lets herself fully submit to the dangerous pleasure.

Tonight, it’s unclear who is the hunter and who is the hunted, and Yves likes it that way. She likes hearing Lip suck her breath in sharply when Yves drags her nails down her back, or seeing how her eyes flutter in pleasure when Yves moves her fingers just right. She likes how it feels to have this powerful, dangerous woman melt like sugar on her tongue. Of course, Lip gives just as good as she gets, and Yves didn’t expect any less. What does surprise her is the tenderness of Lip’s touches at times; the way she kisses over the bruises she leaves, how she massages Yves’ scalp after nearly yanking her hair out. She burns like fire, then she soothes like ice. It makes Yves more than a little dizzy, but in the best way.

When she wakes up the next morning, though, she doesn’t feel as great. Physically, she’s fine; although she’s littered in various bites and bruises, blooming red and purple like deadly flowers on her skin, there’s no lasting damage. Emotionally, though — not so hot. Now that Lip is nowhere to be found and Yves isn’t under her strange spell of lust and fear, she has the presence of mind to ask herself, _ what the fuck were you thinking?! _

What’s even scarier than the feeling of waking up and realizing that you slept with a serial killer, is the realization that it’s really not bothering you as much as it should be.

Rationally, Yves knows this is extremely fucked up. This woman is dangerous, violent, probably a psychopath. But— there’s _ more _ there, Yves just knows it. She may be a liar, but Yves can’t help but believe Lip was telling her the truth when she said she doesn’t want to hurt her. And the sex … just thinking of that sends a shiver all the way down her spine. There’s simply no way you can fuck like _ that _if you don’t feel something for the person you’re with.

Which leads Yves to realize: that means she definitely feels something for Lip too. _ Fuck. _

Staring idly out of the kitchen window as she drinks her too-hot coffee, Yves realizes that Lip is truly gone. She had her right here, in her grasp, and she let her go. Now she’s back out there, and it’s only a matter of time before she hurts someone again. Throughout all the muddled feelings, deep down Yves knows what she has to do.

She picks up the phone and dials the number before she can lose her nerve, biting her nails as the line rings. Thankfully, the voice that picks up is the one that she wanted to talk to. “Hello?”

“Vivi,” Yves says, suddenly feeling out of breath. “Emergency meeting, now. You guys need to hear this.”

* * *

Although she’s just sitting at the desk in their office, Yves feels like she’s being interrogated all over again, the way Vivi and Olivia’s eyes are boring into her like electric drills.

“So she just showed up at your house? Uninvited?” Vivi finally asks, eyes wide with shock.

“Yes,” Yves says, a little too quickly. Alright, so she isn’t being _ completely _honest. Who can blame her? She’s already being looked at as a suspect, and having secret liaisons with the enemy doesn’t exactly help.

“What did she want?” Olivia pipes up.

“I don’t really know,” Yves says, somewhat truthfully. “She said she wanted to talk, and she spun me this whole yarn about how she hates being an assassin but she’s stuck in the job, but I don’t know if she was being honest.”

Vivi taps her pen against her lips thoughtfully. “Who knows? It may have been a cry for help. After all, this entire situation is very strange. She just showed up to your house, talked to you, and then … left?”

“Exactly,” Yves lies.

“Why didn’t you try and stall? You know, keep her there while you called for backup?” Olivia prompts.

“She obviously wouldn’t let her use her phone, Olivia, she’s not stupid,” Vivi reprimands, and Yves nods along silently.

“Her name is Lip,” Yves adds. “It’s obviously not her real name, but it’s something, right?”

“It’s something,” Vivi agrees, and Olivia nods. “Goodness, this must be scary for you, Yves. Having an assassin show up in your house? I can’t imagine.”

“It was very intense,” Yves says, which isn’t at all a lie. 

“Right. I suppose we’ll redouble our efforts to find her, now,” Vivi says with a sigh. “I’m not getting anywhere with MI6, as expected. They’re completely on the wrong track.”

“Yves, have you considered staying with a friend, or in a hotel maybe?” Olivia suggests. “What if she comes back?”

Yves tries to repress her shiver, like she hasn’t been thinking about that question all morning. “I wouldn’t want to endanger anybody else,” she says. “I’ll be fine in my house.”

Vivi pats her shoulder gently. “You don’t have to be so brave about this, Yves,” she says, and her caring tone makes Yves’ eyes feel watery for some reason. It must be her frazzled nerves.

She forces a smile, brushes Vivi’s hand off. “I’m fine, really. I’m not scared.” And although that’s another lie, the next thing she says isn’t: “If she comes again, I’ll be ready for her.”

  
  


**P A R I S**

“More tea?” Lip asks sweetly, lifting the kettle. Haseul eyes her suspiciously over her half-full mug, her professional attire contrasting with the mismatched, kitschy furniture of Lip’s kitchen.

“I’m fine,” Haseul says, taking another sip. “Honestly, Lip, I’m surprised. A part of me worried that giving you direct orders would only make you rebel more, but you seem to be staying out of trouble.”

“Of course, boss,” Lip says innocently, pouring the steaming water into her own mug and watching the tea leaves swirl and darken the clear liquid. “I’m on my best behavior, right?”

“Right,” Haseul says, although she doesn’t sound to be completely convinced. “What have you been doing to occupy yourself for the past two weeks, then? Am I going to find a dead body in the closet?”

Lip fakes a laugh, high and tinkling. “No dead bodies in here, I promise. I’ve actually been getting very into knitting. I’ve been going to classes.”

Haseul quirks an eyebrow. “Can I see some of your work, then?”

“Oh, no, I’m still very new to it. All my stuff looks like it was made by a five year old,” Lip lies effortlessly. “By Christmas time I’ll be good enough to make you a sweater.”

“Alright, I’ll look forward to it,” Haseul half-laughs, her shoulders untensing, and Lip hides her smile in her mug of tea, now bitter and over-steeped. It’s laughable how easily Haseul trusts her, despite all the shit she’s pulled. She guesses she really _ is _a good liar.

“So what are you all dressed up for?” Lip says, motioning to the three-piece suit Haseul is wearing. “Unless you got all snazzy for my house arrest visit.”

“I’m going to deal with business,” Haseul says smoothly. “And no, I’m not telling you what kind of business. You’re still suspended, which means you don’t get to be in the know.”

Lip pouts, kicking her feet under the table. “Haseul, seriously, how long is this gonna go on for? I’ve been good!”

“And you’ll keep being good,” Haseul says, making it sound like a command. “You’re still in hot water with the higher-ups for the little stunt you pulled, Lip. In fact, you’re lucky you’re still even employed and not facedown in a ditch somewhere, so I’d suggest you stop complaining and keep working on that knitting.”

Lip wants nothing more than to scowl and scream and throw a tantrum, preferably ending in her either fucking or killing somebody, but she knows she has to play her cards right, so instead she plasters a fake smile onto her face and says, “yes, boss.”

As soon as Haseul leaves to go attend to her business, Lip pulls out one of her many burner phones and begins to dig up old, long-forgotten contacts. This suspension has made one thing clear to her: when it comes down to it, Haseul will always side with _ them _over her. This turns her from a dubious ally to an outright enemy, and Lip knows what they say about enemies: keep them real close.

It’s time to do a little digging, she thinks, and get to know the _ real _Haseul.

  
  


**L O N D O N**

“Are you nervous?” Yves asks, watching Vivi adjust her collar for the fifth time in as many minutes. She, Vivi, and Olivia are currently seated in a dimly-lit, beautifully-decorated restaurant, waiting to meet up with a potential contact from the French government who’d picked up an interest in their case.

“A little,” Vivi admits, moving on to fiddling with her sleeve cuffs. “This could really help our case.”

“It’s not that,” Olivia says around a mouthful of the free bread she’s been steadily snacking on. “She has a big crush.”

“Shut up!” Vivi says, looking mortified, and it’s so un-Vivi-like that Yves has to suppress a giggle.

“Oh, so you’ve met?” she asks.

Before Vivi can answer, Olivia says, “no, but they _ video chatted _”, waggling her eyebrows obnoxiously at Vivi. The older woman gets this look on her face like she’s about to jump over the table and strangle Olivia, but then her eyes focus on some point behind Olivia’s shoulder and her face changes into a smile. She hurriedly stands up to meet the suited woman that Yves now sees approaching their table. 

“Haseul. It’s nice to finally meet you in person,” she greets, extending a hand, but Haseul pulls her into a warm hug and kisses her on both cheeks.

“Viian, enchantée,” Haseul says warmly, and Vivi actually _ giggles _like a schoolgirl: “You can call me Vivi.”

Olivia lets out a loud snort, followed by some gagging sounds. When Vivi throws her a murderous look, she innocently says, “sorry! Bread went down the wrong pipe.”

Vivi smiles through gritted teeth. “This is my team, Olivia and Yves,” she introduces, as Haseul sits down. “Girls, this is Jo Haseul. She came all the way from France to meet us here.”

“Well I simply had to, once I found out you were working on this case,” Haseul says, flipping open a menu. “It’s had my interest for quite some time.”

“Us too,” Vivi says. “I assume you also couldn’t formally investigate it because of how difficult it is to actually link all the same cases to one person?” 

“Precisely,” Haseul says. “When I heard you ladies were getting somewhere with it, well. I just had to investigate for myself. I hope you don’t mind sharing the details with me?”

“Of course not,” Vivi says, at the same time as Olivia says, “why should we trust you?”

Vivi kicks her under the table, _ hard _, and turns to Haseul, ignoring her yelps. “Please excuse her. She was dropped on the head as a child. Several times.”

Haseul smiles gently. “No, she’s a smart girl.” She pulls a government badge out of her bag and holds it up for Olivia to inspect. “Convincing enough?”

Olivia squints at the badge before shrugging and leaning back in her seat. “Sure. Can we order some food now? I’m out of bread, and I don’t think the waiter’s gonna bring us a third basket.”

As the waiter comes round to take their orders, Yves subtly checks Haseul out. If Vivi really does have a crush, she can’t blame her; the woman is both beautiful and charming, in a way that Yves hasn’t seen since … well. Since Lip.

(Not that she’s counting, but that was a whole minute and forty three seconds where she wasn’t thinking about Lip. She considers that a new personal record.)

Once the waiter comes back and pours everyone a glass of the eye wateringly expensive wine that Haseul ordered, the short-haired woman leans forward, swirling the dark liquid in her glass. “So. Catch me up on the work you’ve been doing.”

“How much do you know already?” Olivia asks.

“Well, the last I heard about was the … incident in Berlin. I’m sorry about your partner, Yves,” Haseul says, turning her gaze to Yves for a moment. Yves nods and mutters a thank you, but something about Haseul saying that doesn’t feel right to her. She knows it’s just the cursory thing you're supposed to say, but still, it seems insincere.

“Well, it’s been going pretty slowly since then,” Vivi admits. “She seems to have been lying low after that, because we haven’t picked up on any criminal activity that we suspect is linked to her. However…” she drops her voice to a whisper, barely audible over the background chatter and clinking of glasses. “We’ve had direct contact with her.”

Haseul was bringing the glass up to her mouth, but her hand stops in mid-air and she stares at Vivi in complete surprise. “With … with _ her _?” she asks, her eyebrows halfway up her forehead. “The suspect?”

“The suspect. Her name is Lip,” Vivi whispers conspiratorially, and Haseul clenches her jaw and sets the glass down on the table.

“Tell me everything,” she says, her face deadly serious.

Yves swallows, Haseul’s gaze more than a little intimidating, but nevertheless she tells the story with ease. She’s practiced it hundreds of times; as a detective, she knows that the biggest mistake liars make is not getting their stories straight. It makes her realize, with some distress, that she’s now in the same position as the bad guys she was always out to get. By the end of Yves’ (heavily edited) story, Haseul’s face is neutral and composed, but her fist is gripping the stem of her wineglass so hard Yves fears it might break.

“This is huge,” Haseul says quietly. “But you haven’t told anyone else this? In an official capacity, I mean.”

Vivi is about to respond, but the waiter comes round with their food and she easily switches into natural small talk. Once he’s out of earshot, she replies to Haseul: “no, we haven’t. There is a … small issue.”

“The suits think Yves is working with Lip,” Olivia supplies, digging happily into her bowl of pasta.

Vivi sighs. “Yes, they do. Of course, we know that’s not trye, but if they find out about this it’ll only make those suspicions stronger. We’ve endangered Yves enough throughout this mission.” This makes Yves feel an odd mix of emotions — touched at how Vivi clearly cares about her to the point of omitting information to cover for her, and horribly guilty because she’s lying to her. And while she’s not working with Lip, she might as well be at this point. She’s _ literally _sleeping with the enemy.

(Slept, actually. Just that once. Sleeping makes it sound like a consistent thing, which it’s not, and which she definitely does _not_ want it to be.)

“Hmm. Yes, that would seem quite incriminating. I wouldn’t tell anyone either, if I were you,” Haseul says, draining her glass of wine and pouring another.

“I don’t think we will,” Vivi says with a shrug. “Even if we were to tell them, it wouldn’t change anything about the case. We still know practically nothing about this woman.”

“Well, that’s just too bad,” Haseul says evenly. “So, Vivi, have you ever been to Paris?”

The conversation directs itself elsewhere for the rest of the night, and they eat in the midst of casual chatter. Or rather, Vivi and Haseul are the ones talking; Olivia is completely absorbed in her meal and her phone, and Yves is pushing her food around her plate, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in her stomach. She’s just not cut out for this, and she doesn’t understand how Lip does it. Just one lie so far, and the anxiety is completely eating her alive.

When the dinner draws to a close, Yves is relieved. Something about Haseul is unnerving to her; maybe it’s the intensity of her gaze, or maybe it’s the pressure of having to lie to yet another government official. When they’re saying their goodbyes, Haseul leans in to kiss both Yves’ cheeks as is the French custom, but as she draws away she pauses, her hands still on Yves’ shoulders.

“What perfume is that? It smells lovely,” Haseul asks, her eyes narrowed, and though she has no way of knowing that it’s the eau de parfum given to her by Lip, Yves’ heart still speeds up.

“Um, I don’t remember. The label came off,” Yves says quickly. Haseul nods and gives Yves a tight smile, squeezing her shoulder one last time before they part ways.

“Good luck, ladies. It was nice to finally meet you,” Haseul bids them goodbye, her eyes lingering on Yves for a moment too long before she turns and walks away, her long black coat whipping in the wind like a shroud.

“Did anyone get, like, a weird vibe from her?” Yves asks when Haseul turns the corner of the street. 

“Not at all,” Vivi says, which garners a snort from Olivia.

“Of course not, you were practically ready to propose,” the younger girl says, and the two of them continue to bicker as they all walk to the bus together. Yves can’t stop looking behind her shoulder the whole way there— although Haseul is long gone, she can’t help the feeling that she’s being watched.

Meanwhile, several streets away, Haseul ducks into an alley and pulls out her phone, furiously punching in the digits. The long-distance call is going to cost her, but she’s so mad right now she doesn’t even care.

Lip picks up on the third ring. “What? I was sleeping.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Haseul says, keeping her tone calm even though she’s trembling with fury. “You went to London to see Ha fucking Sooyoung? Against my _ direct _orders? I’m beginning to think you have a death wish, Kim Jungeun.”

Lip just laughs, which only infuriates Haseul further. “And it took you this long to find out? I’m beginning to think you're just as careless as you suspect I am, Jo Haseul.”

Haseul’s eyebrows knit together — how the fuck does Lip know her real name? Still, she can’t let her surprise show through, not when she has a point to make. “You’re lucky I’m in London right now,” she growls into the phone. “You have about three hours to tick off any items on your bucket list, because when I find you, you’re fucking dead.”

“It’s a date,” Lip chirps, and then she has the audacity to hang up. Haseul allows herself exactly one minute of blowing off steam, wherein she screams in frustration and crushes her phone beneath her boot, and then she pulls herself together and continues on her path to the train station. She doesn’t know what’s gotten into Lip these days, but she’s going to make damn sure she gets it all out of her system.

**P A R I S**

Lip hears the door to her apartment fly open, heavy stomping down the hall, and then as expected the footsteps come to a sudden halt in the doorway to the dining room. Lip doesn't bother to turn around, and instead smiles towards her guest. “Want a cookie, Yeojin?”

“Sure,” the young girl says eagerly, letting go of her pen and reaching towards the plate on the table between them. Quick as a flash, Haseul sprints forward and lashes out with her arm, sending the whole thing flying. Yeojin’s yelp is masked by the sound of the plate shattering against the floor with a jarring crash.

“Don’t eat those!” she exclaims, her voice panicky.

“She’s already had three,” Lip says, and Haseul’s head snaps towards her.

“What did you do to her?” she spits, approaching her threateningly, but one look at Yeojin’s concerned face makes her stop in her tracks. 

“Nothing at all,” Lip says innocently. “I just happened to see her on her walk back from school and I took her out for some ice cream. Then we came back here so I could help her with her math homework.” Haseul glances over to Yeojin again; sure enough, there’s an exercise book open on the table in front of them.

Now that she’s established Yeojin is unharmed, the immediate panic subsides. “What were you thinking, Yeojin, going anywhere with a stranger?!”

Looking bewildered, Yeojin responds, “well, she knew my name and your name and even where we live and everything … I mean, what’s the big deal? You guys know each other, right?”

A moment of tense silence passes as Haseul and Lip stare each other down, and then Haseul finally says, “Lip, can I talk to you in private for a moment?”

“Sure,” Lip says casually, leaning over the table to point at Yeojin’s book. “Here, do these questions till we get back, okay? Don’t forget the formula sheet we made.” Then she walks out of the room casual as ever, leading Haseul to her bedroom down the hall.

It takes everything for Haseul to keep her fists clenched by her side and not pummeling into Lip’s face, but Yeojin is less than thirty feet away and she doesn’t want to start anything while she’s here. “I should kill you,” she grits out instead, picturing it instead of doing it.

“But you won’t,” Lip says coldly, all of the fake pleasantries gone. “Now, do whatever it takes to get me unsuspended or my next visit to your little sis won’t be as benevolent.”

Haseul grinds her teeth. “Since when do you care about work anyway? Last I checked you were jetsetting to see this detective. I know you get obsessive, but Lip, this is really too fucking much. What if you had showed up out of the blue and she had friends over? Family? _ Colleagues_?”

“She knew when I was coming, I left her a note,” Lip says dismissively. “And last time _ I _checked, what I do on my time away from work is none of your business.”

“It is when it starts to affect your work!” Haseul growls, trying to keep her voice down. “You literally gave her a time and place to meet? What if you’d walked into a room full of cops?”

“But I didn’t,” Lip points out. “I knew I wouldn’t. You know why I knew? It’s the same reason why she didn’t tell anyone about the note, and why she wore a pretty dress and perfume that I bought her, and why we fucked. I have her wrapped around my finger, so don’t worry about that one bit. Just focus on getting me my job back, okay? And maybe I’ll let Yeojin live long enough to see her next math test.”

Rage sparks in Haseul again, but there’s nothing she can do but bite back her words and clench her jaw. She’d hoped she was careful enough to protect Yeojin from all this, but she always knew if it came down to it that she would ultimately choose her family, without question. “Fine,” she says quietly, folding her arms. “I’ll see what I can do to get you a hit soon. Now, can I take my sister home?”

“Can you stay until we’re done with this chapter, at least? She’s really getting the grip of it,” Lip says, and Haseul shrugs because fuck it, she can’t remember the last time Yeojin cared about anything school-related. Might as well take advantage of the silver lining in this sky of stormy clouds.

When Lip bids the sisters goodbye at the door, Haseul leans in for a hug, which surprises her until she realizes it’s just so that she can whisper in Lip’s ear without Yeojin hearing: “She doesn’t love you. Nobody ever will.”

For the first time that evening, Lip’s triumphant smile falls from her face, and Haseul’s words haunt her long after she leaves Lip alone in her apartment. Lip hadn’t considered that this could be love, but this burning, blinding feeling that she feels for Yves — and that she _ knows _Yves feels for her — what else could it possibly be? This is all new territory for her, and it makes her feel like a child who can barely swim, wading out into murky waters where you can’t see what hides below the surface.

With her thoughts bouncing around the inside of her head, she tends to go a little crazy. Usually she’d fix this with a classic ‘binge on sex/drugs/murder until you’re high enough not to think anymore’, but she knows if she wants to get her job back she needs to behave. So she does the least destructive thing she can think of (and the one thing that she really wants to do): she calls Yves. Of course, she’d found the girl’s number far before her address even, but she hasn’t had a reason to use it. Until now.

The phone rings four times before Yves picks up, and those four rings stretch out for what seems like hours to Lip, her breath bated for the entire time. Then when she hears the gentle “hello?” on the other end, she lets all her breath out in a _ whoosh _and she swears sparks run through her entire body.

She’s a master of self-indulgence, but nothing has ever felt so sinfully good.

“Hello?” Yves says again, with annoyance this time, and it calls Lip to attention.

“Missed me?” she says smoothly, grinning at the sharp intake of breath that she hears in response. It’s followed by muffled talking sounds, then footsteps, the slam of a door, the flick of a lighter. Lip’s beginning to wonder whether Yves had intended to hang up and put the phone away, but then she hears her hiss: “you’re fucking crazy. I’m at work, what the hell are you thinking?”

“But you picked up,” Lip says, thrilled at the thought of Yves running out of her office to answer her call.

“I told them it was my mom,” Yves grumbles. “Jesus, what the hell do you want?”

“You smoke?”

Yves is caught off-guard by the non-sequitur. “I— not usually. I’ve just been the littlest bit stressed these days.”

“Wonder why,” Lip says, and it makes Yves sigh.

“Okay. I’m hanging up.”

“Wait!” Lip blurts, and she hears silence but the call doesn’t end. “Uh, what are you up to at work? Digging up any dirt on me?”

“No,” Yves says sourly. “You’re a fucking ghost. We’re trying, but there’s only so much we can do and we’re beginning to run out of ideas. I caught my coworker playing Pacman and she didn’t even close the window when she saw me looking.”

Lip smiles unconsciously at the thought of Yves working at her desk, spending all that time and effort on her. “Well, maybe that’s a good thing. Once this all blows over, maybe we can see each other again.”

Yves makes a strangled sound in her throat. “No, goddammit! You can’t just say stuff like that. There is no _ we_.”

“Really? Because last I checked it takes two to take all the things we did,” Lip purrs. “Well, most of the things. I was doing all the work when you s—”

“Stop!” Yves shouts into the phone, and it makes Lip pause in her tracks. “Stop, just fucking stop it, god. That was a mistake. A horrible, _ terrible _mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Lip half-yells back. “I know you felt it, too. That connection, that _ chemistry_. You can’t tell me that you’ve ever felt that way before, can you?”

The pause Yves takes is long enough to give Lip an answer. “Even so,” she finally says, her voice quaking, “this would never, _ ever _ happen. You’re a psychopath, you’re a _killer_, and you can talk about connection all you want, but we don’t know anything about each other. You didn’t tell me a single fucking thing about yourself that night that wasn’t a lie.”

Lip can’t really argue with that, so instead she says, “alright, I’ll tell you something right now. Um… the first girl I ever liked smoked. Not even properly smoked, just clove cigarettes, which is so lame. I didn’t really, but we were always together, so I got used to the sound of that lighter … you just reminded me right now. We went to boarding school together and it was prohibited — _ super _prohibited, it was a Catholic one at that — but she did it anyway. I remember thinking she was so badass.” Lip shakes her head, the fondness of the memory tinged with something slightly sour. She hasn’t thought about Jiwoo in a while.

“Oh,” Yves says, clearly surprised at this new, unexpected information. Once she runs it through she seems to decide that Lip’s telling the truth, because her tone is less harsh when she speaks again. “_You _ thought _ she _ was badass? You kill people for a living.”

“I haven’t always been this way,” Lip says, with a chuckle that dies down as soon as she realizes the raw, unintentional honesty in that statement.

“Lip,” Yves says, in a tone that sounds too close to pity, so Lip doesn’t let her finish.

“Well, I just wanted to hear your voice again,” Lip says, forcing an airy confidence. “Of course, it’s not the same as having that pretty body underneath me, but I’ll settle for what I can.”

Yves sighs. “Goodbye, Lip.”

“Bye, sweet thing,” Lip says, hanging up first.

Yves stares at her phone screen, dazed. She can’t believe that just really happened, especially because of the adrenaline that’s suddenly pumping through her. She has no idea what to feel right now, and it’s driving her insane.

(Except, she does know how she feels — _ excited _ . It’s sick and twisted, but when Lip talked about that connection in between them, she swears her heart skipped a beat. She _ knew _ there was something happening between them, something palpable and tangible and not just in her head. She’s fucking _ thrilled _ about this, and that’s what’s really driving her insane.)

The _ plop _ of a raindrop on her nose is what kicks her out of her daze, making her realize that her cigarette has long burned out and that the grey clouds overhead have finally parted. Using her coat to shield her head, she makes quick work of the fire escape and gets back inside before the downpour starts.

“How’s your mom?” Olivia asks.

“Oh, uh, she’s alright,” Yves says awkwardly, and Olivia just nods and goes back to her screen. Now that Yves is lying consistently, that initial feeling of guilt and shame has subsided a little. In fact, it’s almost given way to this sort of sick satisfaction that comes along with getting away with lying, even small insignificant ones like this. Even though she knows she’s digging herself deeper with every lie, she feels more secure in her secret knowing that nobody suspects a thing.

As she settles back into her desk, she asks Vivi, “how’s the research going?” It’s a cursory question, almost rhetorical at this point, because she knows how it’s going: it’s not. With no idea who this woman is or where she’s from, they have to start from the very bottom. And that means searching every prison in the _ world _for women who fit her description. Needless to say, it’s a Herculean task.

As expected, Vivi sighs, “nothing promising yet. God, I wish we had somewhere to start, _ anywhere_.”

Yves nods sympathetically, but freezes as the gears in her brain kick into place. They _ do _ have somewhere to start, though — a Catholic boarding school. Sure, it’s still vague, but it’s something, anything. At this point, her need to find Lip runs far deeper than work, or than revenge. She wants to — she _ needs _to know everything she can about this woman. 

(And somewhere deep down inside her, she needs to justify that phone call. If talking to Lip can help their case, then it’s not a bad thing that she wants so badly to talk to her again, right?)

Vivi perks up. “Hey, what’s that look? Do you have something?”

“I might,” Yves says, turning her computer back on and getting up to start another pot of coffee. This is going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well... there we go! disclaimer: lipves' relationship is obviously extremely unhealthy and i do not condone any of this whatsoever. on the other hand .... lip assassin sexy


	4. hold me, touch me, love me, help me (be the first who ever did)

**S E O U L**

Lip checks her watch, feeling sour. She’s been tracking this guy for a week, which usually isn’t long enough to establish a schedule, but he’s come jogging here every night at around this time. She’ll be thoroughly pissed off if he’s chosen today out of all days to take a break.

She’s wasted more than enough time already, considering how low-level this hit is. He’s a politician, but barely an important one. The person who called the hit wasn’t even a political opponent, it was his ex-wife. Lip can tell Haseul is easing her back into it, giving her easy cases that she could do with one hand tied behind her back, but she keeps her mouth shut. She and Haseul seem to be on good terms again — at least, as good as two people can get when one of them threatens the other’s younger sister — and she’d like to keep it that way. 

She hears leaves rustle nearby and springs into action, pulling out her map and looking confused. Sure enough, her target comes jogging past, looking extra-douchey in his sports headband and velour tracksuit.

“Excuse me!” she says loudly, grabbing his arm and stopping him in his tracks. He pulls out his earbuds, looking annoyed.

“What?” he snaps. Lip plasters on a fake smile. Might as well let him live out his superiority complex, seeing as he only has moments to live.

“I’m lost, can you show me how to get here?” she asks, pointing to the map. He leans down instinctively to look at it, and quick as a flash she pulls her gun from her waistband and shoots him in the back of the head. She doesn’t think he even realizes, just goes down like a light.

Lip’s not worried about witnesses, seeing as this trail is pretty abandoned and her silencer was on, but it’s not like she wants to hang around. She ditches the gun in a nearby bush and considers going back to her hotel, but decides instead to take a walk around the town, reacquaint herself with the city. This job may have been stupid and a waste of time, but it’s nice to be back in Seoul.

Sure, she’s had some truly terrible memories here, but she misses the buildings, the smell of street food cooking, the way everywhere she goes people are speaking her native tongue. Even though it’s changed a lot in the years since she left here and never looked back, Lip supposes there’s no place like home.

Her sightseeing gets boring after a little while, so Lip decides to go to one of the bars she used to frequent in her younger years. It’s a shady, below-ground venue with blacked out windows and no proper storefront, but they have the best home brew she’s ever tasted. Plus, the bartenders never asked for ID, so this is the only place she could go to before she was of age.

As Lip takes her usual seat in a hidden corner and orders a pint, she thinks that it doesn’t feel the same as it used to. The place hasn’t actually changed that much, but something about the atmosphere is different. Maybe it’s because she’s alone this time; every other time, without fail, she was with …

Lip takes a huge swallow of her beer to chase the bitter feeling that comes to her mouth. She’s spent the last week here trying to repress her memories of  _ her _ , and she’ll be damned if this dingy bar is what breaks her. She decides to distract herself with one of her favorite hobbies: people watching. She likes to look around and study people’s expressions, maybe try and replicate them herself. Practice makes perfect.

When she sees Jiwoo at the bar, she thinks she must be seeing things. It’s just her mind conjuring her up because she was just thinking about her. But even when she rubs her eyes and squints, Jiwoo’s still there. She’s real, in the flesh, and just across the room from Lip. It seems that she isn’t the only one who still remembers this place.

Then, Lip notices something that makes all the emotions bubbling up inside her turn into pure, white rage: Jiwoo’s here with a woman, and judging by the way she’s giggling and touching her arm, it’s definitely a date. Her jaw working, Lip downs the rest of her beer in one gulp, like it’ll quench the fire that’s burning inside her right now. So she was never good enough for Jiwoo, but this girl is? And Jiwoo’s bringing her to  _ their  _ spot? 

Lip wants nothing more than to fly across the room and rip this girl to shreds, but she forces herself to wait, formulating a plan. She zeroes in on the other girl, surveying her for any intel, and a metaphorical lightbulb goes on in her head when she spots a car key sticking out of the girl’s back pocket. She waits until Jiwoo goes into the bathroom and then leaps into action, crossing the room quickly and tapping the girl on the shoulder.

“Hey, do you drive a Kia?” she asks, making herself sound worried.

“Yeah, why?” the girl asks.

Lip winces. “I just rear-ended it trying to park. It’s really fucked up…”

She doesn’t even have to say more, because the girl exclaims “ _ fuck _ , that’s my dad’s car!” and springs up from her seat, running out of the bar.

Lip jogs after her, keeping up a string of “gosh I’m so sorry I’m such a klutz I hope it isn’t too bad”, following the girl out into the parking lot. Lip is lucky: the girl’s car is parked all the way on the other side of the parking lot, far from view.

They both stop at the car, and the girl surveys it with confusion. “Wait, it looks perfectly fine. What—”

Lip grabs the back of her neck and smashes her head into the windshield so hard that it goes right through it. The girl begins to scream, but stops pretty quickly after Lip continues slamming her head down onto the shattered glass, over and over again until her face looks like ground beef and the car alarm is screaming.

The loud, piercing sound is the only thing that gets Lip to stop and step back, her eyes blurry and her head pounding. She barely has the presence of mind to strip off her blood-spattered jacket before breaking into a run back to her hotel. When she gets there she begins throwing things into her suitcase, trying to stop her erratic breathing from turning into hyperventilation.

Once she’s haphazardly shoved in all her stuff, she dials a number on her phone with shaky hands.

Haseul picks up on the first ring. “Are you done with your job?”

“Yes,” Lip says, her voice quaking. “I need you to book me a ticket out of here. I have to get out,  _ now _ .”

“Aw, did something happen?” Haseul says, with too much dripping concern for it to be anything but sarcasm. 

Lip’s fist tightens around the suitcase tag she’s been toying with, snapping it clean off. “You bitch. You sent me here on purpose because you knew… you…” She swallows hard, forcing down the hot lump in her throat. She won’t let Haseul win. It’s exactly what she wants.

“I knew what?” Haseul says mockingly. “That you would inevitably get set off by something or the other because of your fucked up past? Let me guess, you had a tantrum and killed somebody that wasn’t the target?” She laughs. “Think twice before you fuck with me again, little girl. I know you far too well.”

Lip grinds her teeth. “Text me the flight information,” she says shortly, and hangs up. She makes sure the call is over before she throws her phone beneath her heel, stomping on it with her bare feet until the buttons make her soles hurt. Only then does she finally let herself sit down with her head in her hands and just  _ scream _ , letting out all the rage and sadness and hurt that’s been building up for over a decade.

**L O N D O N**

“Holy shit,” Yves whispers to herself, staring at the white glow of her laptop screen. She’d come home from an inconclusive day at the office, and decided as she often does to continue doing a little light research at home. Never did she think that she’d stumble upon the jackpot while eating dry cereal in bed. Of course, she has Lip to thank for the unintentional clues; unbeknownst to Vivi and Olivia, she’s been focusing her research on boarding schools, and one trail led to the other until she found herself looking at a file from a juvenile delinquent center in Seoul. 

_ Kim Jungeun _ , reads the file, and there’s a photo of Lip. She’s much younger in the photo, but it’s undoubtedly her. Her cheeks have the roundness of late teenhood but not quite adulthood, and her hair is dyed a brassy blonde with dark roots growing in. Yves would say she looks almost cute, if not for the cold, dead stare she’s giving the camera. And, of course, the contents of the file.

_ [REDACTED] Juvenile Center For Wayward Youth _

_ Incident Report: Kim Jungeun Case Number #600 _

_ Kim Jungeun, hereafter referred to as the inmate, was a former attendee of [REDACTED] Boarding School for Girls. She was roommates and close friends with one Kim Jiwoo, who was romantically involved with [REDACTED], hereafter referred to as the victim. The inmate had romantic feelings for Ms. Kim, and after being rejected she kidnapped the victim from his family home and took him to an empty slaughterhouse (address: REDACTED) where she put him into a meat grinder. Due to the state of the remains, it is unknown whether this killed him or if he was already dead. Police tracked the inmate’s phone and apprehended her trying to flee the city. She is not legally an adult but will be tried as one in court (date TBD). In the meantime, she is being held in [REDACTED] Juvenile Center For Wayward Youth. _

_ Notes: psych evaluation was inconclusive, but it is evident that she is highly manipulative and very violent, and thus will be held in solitary confinement. _

All that was horrifying enough, but Yves’ stomach truly drops when she reaches the last sentence:

_ Inmate status: DECEASED. _

Yves should have known this would happen. With every lead she finds, another dead end is waiting right around the corner. But what she also knows is that what seems like a dead end can simply be a hidden door. 

“Game on,” she murmurs to herself, forwarding the file to Vivi and Olivia. Slow and steady, she’s getting closer to unraveling the mystery that is Kim Jungeun. 

When she arrives at the office next morning, bursting with the news, Yves is surprised to see Haseul sitting in her usual seat. She’s not wearing a suit this time; instead, she's dressed down in a simple black shirt and checkered pants, but nevertheless her intimidating aura remains.

“Uh, good morning, guys. And Haseul. I didn’t expect to see you here,” Yves says, awkwardly perching on the edge of the desk.

“Well, it was a bit of a last minute decision, but Haseul’s going to be joining our little team,” Vivi says, exchanging a coy look with Haseul. “Given the new information you found yesterday, I think we’re progressing enough to warrant having another person on board. Great job, by the way.”

“Yes, great job,” Haseul echoes. “Where on earth did you get the idea to search detention center records? Wouldn’t prisons be the first place you look?”

Yves coughs uncomfortably, shifting on her awkward seat. “Well, Olivia was already looking through prisons, and Vivi was tackling mental institutions… I just thought, you know, with somebody this messed up they probably got in trouble early on in life.”

“You certainly thought right,” Haseul says, smoothly producing a stack of papers from a briefcase under the table. “I did a little digging myself.”

“Holy crap,” Vivi murmurs, eyes going wide as she surveys the papers. Even Olivia wheels away from her desk to look.

“In here there’s paperwork from foster homes and adoptive parents, notes from mandatory psychological evaluations, detention records from school…” Haseul trails off, waving a hand over the mountain of papers. “Have at it.”

“This is amazing, Haseul!” Vivi gushes, looking at Haseul all starry-eyed while Olivia eagerly attacks the papers. Yves just folds her arms and repositions herself on the edge of the desk, feeling ugly jealousy curl in her stomach. She just made this amazing discovery, doubtlessly the most important one they’ve made so far, and Haseul just swoops in out of nowhere and completely upstages her. Not only did she steal Yves’ moment, she stole her chair too.  _ Pretentious snob _ , Yves thinks meanly to herself.  _ She’s only on this case cause Vivi wants to fuck her. _

“Hey, look at this one,” Olivia says, selecting a piece of paper at random. “She got kicked out of a foster home for torturing their pet hamsters. She was  _ six _ . Jesus.”

“This one too,” Vivi says, peering at a document. “This is from when she was thirteen. After failing a test, she set fire to a classroom — with the teacher still inside.”

“I wonder if there’s anything in there about her wetting the bed,” Yves muses. When they all give her a strange look, she quickly clarifies, “uh, it’s this thing called the Macdonald Triad. Three traits predictive of future psychopathy: arson, cruelty to animals, and bed-wetting.”

“There might be in one of the earlier foster home cases?” Olivia wonders. “That’s right, Yves, I forgot you have a fancy psychology degree.”

“Well, I think that with someone like this, you need to get in their head, figure out how they think and what makes them tick. It’s easier to track them down when you can somewhat predict how they’re going to act,” Yves explains. While all that is true, there are definitely ulterior motives at play. She wants to figure out how Lip’s brain works for her own personal reasons, because while her behavior in general is more than indicative of psychopathy, the Lip that Yves spent that night with was a whole different person. Yves wants to dig deep, break past the killer’s protective outer shell and get to what’s underneath.

_ I can’t believe I’m  _ hoping  _ that she’s a sociopath _ , she thinks wryly to herself, before moving to the floor so she can spread these papers out and have a good, proper look.

By the time the sun is setting, Yves quietly places the last paper down in front of her and takes a second to process everything. The other three had gone out to grab a quick dinner, but she had opted to stay behind and finish the all the reading material. She feels better about prying into Lip’s entire life when it’s just her. She feels like she’s seen a side of Lip nobody ever has before, and in some twisted way, it makes her feel more entitled to this information than the rest of them.

Although, part of her wishes she’d never read a single word. Yves doesn’t use the word  _ tragic  _ often, but Lip’s life has been one tragedy after the other. Pretty much since she was born, both parents seemed to switch between being abusive and neglectful. When she was rescued from the home at the age of four, she was severely malnourished and needed two months in the hospital to recover normal bodily functions. They also found a younger sibling, an infant who didn’t survive the neglect. Yves can’t imagine what that does to somebody, especially somebody already genetically predisposed to psychopathy, which she firmly believes plays a part. 

It only continues downhill from then on; she gets shuffled from family to family like a hot potato, her behavior and mental state worsening with each one, and when she finally becomes a ward of the state, they just stick her in a boarding school where they don’t have to worry about her. Of course, she then commits a murder and goes to jail, where she allegedly ‘dies’. And that’s it. This horrible, saddening story is all there is to show for the life of Kim Jungeun. Of course Yves knows that’s not really the end, but on paper it is. 

Honestly, some part of Yves was hoping that after reading about how fucked up Lip is, she would finally come to her senses and get over her (strange and worrying) feelings for her. Unfortunately, it almost achieved the opposite. She just feels sad for Lip, and angry at the world for the way they treated her, and she just wants to give her a hug, honestly. 

Worst of all, though, was how she felt when, deeper in the file, she found a newspaper clipping: an obituary for both parents, who were found dead in their homes when Lip was around 19. Of course, she wasn’t expecting to feel sorry for them— they were monsters. But somewhere inside of her, she felt glad. Almost  _ triumphant _ . Like they had gotten what they deserved. Except who the hell thinks that?

(Aside from killers, of course.)

Yves is forced out of her brooding when the team comes back from dinner, carrying paper bags that fill the room with the scent of deliciously greasy burgers. It reminds her that she hasn’t eaten since breakfast, and thankfully her hunger makes it easier to push her confusing thoughts aside as she digs in.

“Yves, did you finish reading?” Olivia says, sipping at a soda.

“Yeah, I just did,” Yves says. So much for not thinking about it.

“Oof. I’m only like halfway through,” Olivia continues. “There’s … a  _ lot _ . Did you see the one where she tried to run over one of her foster siblings with a lawnmower? Like, I shouldn’t have laughed, but dude.”

“Olivia, that’s not funny,” Vivi admonishes, but Yves sees the way Haseul hides her grin behind her burger. Yves thinks that’s the first likable thing Haseul has done since they met.

“You’re right, but we have to laugh. Otherwise we’ll go crazy,” Olivia says, and they all nod solemnly at that. In this line of work, you see so much awful shit that you just can’t let yourself get attached or it’ll eat away at you like a disease. It’s too late for that, though, for Yves; she hasn’t been able to get Lip out of her system since the night she let her in. 

After their dinner is done and everything is tidied away, Olivia asks the question that’s on all of their minds: “So… what do we do next?”

“Well, the last piece of info we have is her file from the detention center, but I doubt they’ll give out any more information over the phone. Maybe a trip to Seoul is in order.”

“Not it!” Olivia says immediately, tapping her nose. “That flight is gonna be hell.”

“That’s alright,” Haseul assures. “The less people, the better. We don’t want to be too conspicuous. Vivi, how’s your Korean?”

“It’s alright,” Vivi replies. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to use it, though, so I’m probably rusty.”

“Well, I’m Korean, so we won’t have an issue with communication. And Yves,” Haseul says, turning to smile at the girl. “You’re a Busan native, right?”

Yves’ brows furrow slightly. “Yeah … how do you know that?”

“You mentioned it over dinner that one time,” Haseul says innocently. Yves is almost  _ sure  _ she didn’t, but that dinner was a while ago so it’s hazy in her mind. Plus, she was so distracted the whole time she couldn’t recall any of their conversation if she tried.

So she just shrugs and says, “okay”, because there’s no valid reason to say otherwise. She’s a grown woman, and she has to get over this weird jealousy and distrust towards Haseul, who’s only trying to help them. Besides, it’ll be nice to go back to Korea again; the last time she was there was for Doyoung’s funeral, and she’d like to replace those bad memories with some nice new ones.

“So it’s settled, then,” Haseul says decisively. “It’ll be just the two of us.”

“Great,” Yves says, trying to force some enthusiasm into her voice. Judging by the way Olivia is laughing from behind Haseul, it doesn’t work.

**S E O U L**

Lip wakes up with a raging headache, face down on the fluffy hotel carpet. She lifts her head and looks around blearily; it’s early morning now, some purplish light seeping through the curtains. She assumes she must have passed out from exhaustion after her tantrum and slept through the night.

Then her attention is brought back to the reason she woke up: her ringing phone. To her amazement it’s still working, even though the screen is cracked and several buttons are missing. Forcing herself to sit upright, she picks up without even looking at the caller ID. “What do you want?”

“Good to know you’re still alive,” Haseul’s voice comes through, slightly tinny. “Why would you have me book you a flight if you weren’t going to take it?”

“I fell asleep,” Lip mutters, her mouth dry. “Again, what do you want?”

“Well, that works out in my favor anyway. I want you to stay in Seoul.”

“Enough of these games, Haseul,” Lip groans. “I’ll just book the flight myself, forget it.”

“It’s not a game, Lip,” Haseul says sternly. “Look, the British police are really onto you. Like,  _ really  _ really onto you. I don’t think it’s safe for you to even be in Europe right now — or on any flight, really. You need to be laying low.”

“The British police?” Lip repeats. “But…”

“But what?” Haseul asks. “You thought your little friend would tip you off about them getting leads on you? Grow up, Lip. She’s obviously playing you.”

Lip swallows. “When you say they’re onto me, what do you mean?”

“How am I supposed to know? They’re raising alerts for you nationwide, take that as you will. Just stay where you are, okay?” Haseul says, and hangs up. She smiles a little to herself, listening to the sound of the shower running. 

Of course, there’s no such nationwide search, but she knows Lip well enough that the threat of that will keep her away. Will keep her in Korea, right where Haseul wants her. When she finds out Yves is there (which she will) and exactly how much dirt she has on her, there’s no way she’ll let her live. Not even from a law enforcement standpoint; to Lip, being emotionally vulnerable to someone is pretty much worse than death. 

Haseul does feel somewhat guilty, though. She is one of the only people who knows about Lip’s past which she keeps deeply hidden, and it was difficult to hand all her secrets over to the detectives. But Haseul knows it’s what had to be done. She needs to knock Yves off the pedestal Lip has her on so she can come to her senses and end this, for good.

The bathroom door opens, releasing a gush of warm air, and Vivi’s head pokes out. “Hot water isn’t free, you know.”

“Economic. I like it,” Haseul responds, and Vivi rolls her eyes before retreating behind the door. Haseul grins, unbuttoning her shirt as she walks to the bathroom. At least one good thing came out of all this.

**L O N D O N ** **→ S E O U L**

Yves stares out of the plane window as if in a trance, watching the vast landscape beneath her move closer and closer until she can see the streets, the trees, the tops of buildings like colored children’s blocks. She wonders idly if the people from below can see her, up in the sky, touching down.

“Good to be home, isn’t it?” Haseul says from beside her, all too cheery for the extremely long flight they just endured. Yves has been ignoring her for the most of it, watching all the crappy movies the plane had to offer and then even resorting to faking sleep. It clearly hasn’t stopped Haseul from trying to make friendly chatter.

“Well, Seoul isn’t really home,” Yves points out, but Haseul just waves her off.

“Close enough,” she responds. “You’ve at least been to the city before, right?”

“Yeah, a few times,” Yves says, thinking of the various school trips and weekend outings with her friends. She wonders with a shiver whether she’d ever come across Lip unknowingly, perhaps brushed past her in a street market or got a drink from her favorite cafe. Then she tells herself to get a grip, that Seoul is a big city and they’re only two people. 

Still, it’s hard to see the city again without thinking about Lip the entire time. It starts raining while they take a cab from the airport to the hotel, while Yves is watching the city zoom by through the window. The raindrops melt the sights outside into vague shapes and colors, leaving her to stare at her own blurry reflection.

Yves is vaguely annoyed that they have to share a room, but there’s at least a divider between their beds. She takes advantage of the privacy to instantly change into her comfiest sleep clothes and sink into the freshly made bed, sighing with relief as the tension of an 11 hour flight seeps out of her bones.

Since Yves hadn’t actually caught a wink of sleep on the plane, it takes only a matter of moments before she’s completely unconscious, her breathing deep and even. Haseul suspects that not even a herd of wild elephants could wake her at this point, but still, she takes her phone call out onto the balcony just to be safe.

“Hello, Lip,” she says into the speaker, leaning over the railing and enjoying the moderate breeze. “How have you been since we last spoken?”

“Bored,” Lip says, sounding grumpy. “You told me to lay low, so I’ve been laying low, but it’s  _ boring _ . I feel like a hamster in a cage, for fuck’s sake. A tiny, depressing cage.”

Haseul rolls her eyes to herself. “Don’t be so dramatic, Lip. I booked you that flat, I know it’s anything but tiny and depressing. Besides, laying low doesn’t have to mean locking yourself in the house. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you go out and do something fun tonight?”

“Like what?” Lip gripes. “I’ve already done anything. God, I’m  _ bored _ . I wanna be in Milan.”

“Have you been to Ilsan Lake Park?” Haseul asks.

“Not that I recall…”

“Well, it’s no Milan, but they do have a very impressive fountain show that starts at 9:10 this evening,” Haseul says. “Go do something fun and touristy. Don’t be so gloomy, Lip.”

“Fine, fine,” Lip sighs. “How are you? Anything interesting going on? Please, let me live vicariously through you.”

“Oh, nothing much,” Haseul says. “Just more of the same.”

“Delightfully vague as always. How’s Yeojin? I miss that little squirt.”

Haseul scoffs disbelievingly. “Oh, yeah, she’s been doing fine since you last saw her and threatened to kill her.”

“Oh, come on, Seulie,” Lip coos. “I was just making a point. You know I wouldn’t.”

“Sure,” Haseul says neutrally, but inside she thinks,  _ no, I don’t. I don’t know what you would do for this girl, and that worries me. _

They wrap up the phone call, and then Haseul heads back into the hotel room to finish unpacking and take a long, warm shower. By the time she gets out Yves is still knocked out cold, so she takes advantage of the time to read one of the novels she’d brought with her. Although Yves thinks they’re here on business, Haseul intends on this trip being a nice, relaxing vacation for her.

By the time the sun sets Yves is still soundly snoozing, which isn’t going to work with Haseul’s plan. She takes it upon herself to ‘accidentally’ slam the bathroom door loud enough to wake the dead, and pretends to act shocked when Yves bolts upright in a daze, blinking the sleep from her eyes.

“Oh, sorry! That must have been the breeze,” Haseul says. “But I suppose you should really be getting up anyway. Don’t want to let jet lag ruin your schedule.”

Yves rubs her head. “Yeah… I guess so.”

By the time Yves takes a shower and changes into some warm clothes, she’s feeling a lot less zombie-like. “So,” she says to Haseul, poking her head around the divider, “the detention center’s closed now, so let’s go first thing tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Haseul agrees. “Do you have any plans for the rest of the night?”

“Uh … I don’t really know. Do you?”

“I’m probably going to curl up in bed for the rest of the evening,” Haseul says cheerily.

Yves tries not to wince. “Right. I’ll probably be going out somewhere, then.” After spending far too much time in extremely close proximity with Haseul, she thinks she’ll go insane if she has to spend another minute in the same room as her.

Haseul smiles, everything going exactly her way. “Well, I recommend Ilsan Lake Park. They have a really brilliant fountain show that starts at 9:10. You can make it if you leave now.”

“Perfect,” Yves agrees readily, dashing out the door as fast as she can. Her sleep has surprisingly left her feeling refreshed and perky instead of gross and groggy, so she’s actually looking forward to seeing this fountain show. As always, the city at night time is beautiful. She loves watching all the colored lights twinkle and the people stream through the streets in gentle waves. Still, the overpowering feeling she gets is loneliness. The park is filled with happy families and couples, chattering and laughing and simply enjoying each other’s company. Yves wishes she had someone like that for her own. 

The fountain show helps ease some of her wistfulness. The water dances in time to the music, lighting up in all different colors, and she reminds herself to actually thank Haseul for sending her here. She doesn’t know it, but somewhere in the crowd only a few feet away, Lip is watching the same display with glazed eyes, cursing Haseul for her terrible advice. She’s bored out of her skull, and thinks she would have actually preferred another dull night in.

When the show is over the crowd begins to gradually disperse, leaving Yves feeling alone again. The fountain is still quite a grand sight even without the displays, and even though she knows it isn’t expressly a wishing fountain, she thinks there’s no harm in trying. Fishing some loose change out of her pocket, she picks the shiniest coin and holds it close to her heart while she closes her eyes and wishes. The words come to her head without thinking:  _ Please, give me a sign. I don’t know what I should do anymore. _

Walking away from the fountain, something tells Lip to turn around. Maybe she wants to get a last glimpse of the fountain she came all this way to see; maybe it’ll have gotten less disappointing, somehow. It looks exactly the same as when she left it, except with one crucial difference: there’s a girl on the other side of it, concentrating as she throws something into the water. Even though she’s quite far away, Lip has memorized every feature of her face and inch of her body enough to know that it’s her. The person she’s been dreaming about seeing since they last parted ways.

“Yves!” she shouts out, not caring how her loudness makes strangers turn. Yves’ head shoots up and when she and Lip lock eyes over the bubbling water, she looks like she’s seen a ghost, physically reeling backwards in surprise. For a horrible moment, Lip thinks she’s going to turn tail and run away from her, but she instead breaks out into a run  _ towards  _ her. Lip starts running too, eager to bridge the gap and meet her in the middle; even an extra second away from her is too long.

When they finally embrace, it’s like two magnets meeting. They fit into each other’s arms perfectly, their lips locking together in a passionate kiss, and it’s like everything else turns to white noise. Yves has never been a big believer in destiny, but like magic Lip has appeared right in front of her, and Yves has never felt more safe or at home than she does in the woman’s embrace. She asked for a sign, and she got one, loud and clear. Even though it’s so wrong, it simply feels  _ right _ , in a way that completely disregards all rationale.

When Lip pulls away she sees that Yves’s eyes are sparkling with tears, a stray one spilling down her cheek. Lip chases it with her thumb, cradling Yves’ face gently. She’s so  _ human _ , so breakable and fragile. At first Lip had thought that was the reason for her attraction to Yves; it was just her innate desire to ruin beautiful, pure things. Yet now it ignites this desire to hold her close and keep her safe from all the horrible things in the world, and god knows she’s already seen more than she deserves.

“Don’t cry,” she says, for lack of anything more profound to say.

“Sorry,” Yves mumbles, shaking her head. “I just… I can’t believe you’re here, oh my god. What are the odds?”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Lip says softly, enjoying the way Yves melts into her touch even though she’s taller. They haven’t stopped holding each other tightly for a moment, but then a passerby eyes them curiously as she walks past and it reminds Lip that they’re in public, even if there are significantly less people now that the water shows are over for the night.

“Let’s go somewhere a bit more quiet,” she says, stepping back and instead reaching her hand out. Yves doesn’t hesitate to take it in hers, their palms clasping together comfortably. Thankfully the park is quite big and some areas are more secluded than others— Lip remembers passing by a small tree-filled area with wooden swings. Yves gives a big smile that makes her eyes crinkle when she sees the swings, letting go of Lip’s hand to go promptly sit on one. Lip takes a seat beside her, watching Yves go as high as she can. She has this childlike wonder about her that Lip finds astonishing. She’s so jaded herself that Yves feels like a breath of fresh air.

“So what are you doing here?” Yves asks after she’s had her fun and slowed down to a stop.

“Nothing,” Lip sighs. “And I’m not just saying that to be secretive. You wouldn’t catch me dead at this place if I hadn’t run out of other things to do.”

“Really? I liked it,” Yves says with a shrug.

“Of course you did,” Lip says, but it’s fond. “What are  _ you  _ doing here?”

Yves hesitates before saying, “just leisure. Work is getting pretty stressful, so.” She’s not sure why she lies, but then again, it’s not like she believes Lip is telling her the truth either. At least they’re on a level playing field for once.

“Really?” Lip says curiously. She imagines it must be, what with this whole investigation they’re running on her, but then again, if things are so busy how is Yves managing to take time off?

Yves sighs and twists her swing a little to look at Lip. “Look… do you think we could just not talk about work tonight?”

“Tonight?” Lip questions, raising an eyebrow. “Wow, and here I was wondering how I was going to ask you to come home with me.”

Yves breaks eye contact, her rising blush visible in the moonlight. “You know I didn’t mean it like that! I just … I wanna spend time with you, but I don’t want to have to think about everything. Can we just pretend we’re two people out on a date?”

“A date?” Lip says with a laugh. “Sweetheart, I wouldn’t bring you here for a date.”

“What would you do then?” Yves laughs back.

“Well, I would invite you over for dinner,” Lip begins, then stop when Yves starts laughing again. “What?”

“We’ve had ‘dinner’ once before and there was definitely no food involved,” Yves giggles.

“You were the host, so that’s on you,” Lip scolds. “If  _ I  _ asked you over for dinner, I would prepare the most exquisite meal you could possibly think of, any cuisine you like. Of course we’ll have wine— maybe champagne? What do you prefer?”

“I’m kind of a whiskey girl,” Yves admits, and Lip’s eyes gleam.

“Even better. We’ll have a nice aged scotch with dinner, then, and I’d take you up on the roof afterwards to look at the stars and have those deep, insightful conversations you can only have at nighttime. Then of course, I’d seduce you.”

Yves smiles despite herself. “Okay. Simple but effective, I like it. Although talking about dinner made me kinda hungry.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have anything in my fridge except cold takeout,” Lip says. “And you can’t go on the roof of the flat I’m staying at. But I would still love to have you over for the seduction part.” 

Yves ducks her head, unable to meet Lip’s intense eyes. “How’s that supposed to help me not be hungry?”

Lip considers it for a moment. “We’ll order pizza after?”

“Wow, romantic.”

“Yves.” Lip reaches out between them to cup Yves’ chin gently, turning her head so she can look at her directly. Her gaze still burns, but gentler now, almost warm. “Will you come home with me?”

Yves knows she shouldn’t. She knows she really,  _ really _ shouldn’t. But if they’re pretending they’re just two people out on a date, and Lip was looking at her like  _ that _ and asking her to come home with her, there’s no way she’d say anything other than—

“Yes. I’d love to.”

* * *

Afterwards, Lip orders that pizza like she promised. While they wait she sits in front of the open window, smoking while Yves perches on the bed, huddled up in the covers to protect her from the breeze coming in. She watches Lip like she’s a film, tracking every blink of her eyelids and swish of her hair. Everything feels so perfect right now, she’s afraid Lip will disappear.

Still, she knows they can’t do this forever, ignore the huge elephant in the room which is trying its best to force them apart. Especially now, still coming down from the high of Lip’s touch, Yves feels extra open and vulnerable. Deciding that there’s no time like the present, she gathers the courage to speak.

“I’m not actually here on vacation.”

Lip barely reacts, just taps out her ash over the windowsill. “I kind of guessed that much.”

“I’m here to investigate you,” Yves prods. “We know you faked your death.”

This catches Lip off guard, making her turn around to look at Yves in alarm. “You do? How?”

“It wasn’t me who found out,” Yves says with a shrug. “But yeah, we know. We know about that, about your family life, about school, about Jiwoo…” she trails off when that name makes Lip’s eyebrows pinch together as she aggressively stubs out her cigarette.

Lip’s mind is whirring at a hundred miles a minute. She’s never felt so naked and exposed before, and it’s a feeling she despises. She’s a fool to think Yves could have fallen for her, especially now that she knows the extent of how fucked up Lip is, all the things she’s done. A small, familiar voice in the back of her head pipes up:  _ you could kill her right now. You’re alone, and you could ensure she doesn’t make much noise. It’s what you should have done all along. _

Those thoughts all disappear when Yves speaks next, her eyes shining with concern and sincerity: “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve this.”

Lip blinks. “Wh— what?”

“You were so young,” Yves says sadly. “Everything was so shit and it just kept getting worse. And nobody tried to help you. Not once. I’m so sorry, Lip. You deserved better. You deserved a normal life.”

Lip’s breath catches in her throat. She’s never heard that once in her entire life.  _ You deserved better _ . She’s always believed that she’s simply a bad person, that there was never a chance for her to save herself. It’s just the way it is: the sky is blue, the clouds are white, and Lip is a bad person with a shriveled, black heart. Yet now, she feels it pounding with a vitality she can never remember feeling before. The worst happened — Yves uncovered all her horrible, dirty secrets — but she isn’t running away. She’s reaching out her hand.

Before Lip knows it she’s throwing herself at Yves with a force that makes the woman fall back onto the bed with an  _ oof!  _ She wraps her arms firmly around Yves’ middle and tucks her head into her shoulder, breathing in her comforting scent, and her chest burns with affection when she feels Yves hug her back, smoothing her hair gently.

“Thank you,” Lip whispers into Yves’ skin. Her shoulders are shaking for a reason she doesn’t understand until Yves lifts her head gently and rubs at her cheek, which is wet.

“Don’t cry,” she repeats Lip’s words from earlier, looking into her eyes. Lip can’t help but smile back at her through her tears.

“Happy tears,” Lip says, and it’s completely honest. She can’t remember the last time she cried, although it was probably around the same time she was taken away from her parents. Ever since then she’s learned that emotions are a sign of weakness, that she should shove everything down and do anything she can not to feel. But as it is with everything else, it’s different with Yves. Instead of mocking her, she’s helping dry her tears.

The doorbell ringing interrupts their tender embrace, and Lip groans. “Ugh, pizza. I’ll get it.” She rolls off the bed reluctantly, throwing on some clothes and grabbing her wallet. 

The pizza boy stares at her curiously while she pays, and as he hands her the pizza box, he says, “your shirt’s inside out.”

Lip looks down at the tag poking out of her front and scowls. “Well, you have pizza sauce on your shirt.”

“No I d—” He squeals indignantly when Lip picks a slice of pepperoni off the pizza and throws it at him, reveling in the  _ splat  _ it makes as it comes into contact with his shirt. She then slams the door and promptly makes her way back to the bedroom, where Yves is waiting for her on the bed with a shy smile.

“I can’t believe I’m here eating pizza in your bed,” Yves admits, accepting the slice Lip hands to her.

Lip sits beside her, their knees knocking. “I can’t, either.”

Yves makes a happy sound as she munches and swallows. “Yeah, I’ve got to thank Haseul.”

Lip nearly chokes on her bite of pizza. “What?” she asks blankly, so surprised that she barely comprehends what Yves just said.

“Oh, she’s this new woman working on your case with us,” Yves says casually, eating her pizza like she isn’t turning Lip’s world upside down with every word. “She’s from the French government or something. I don’t really like her, but I guess she’s good cause she’s the one who found out all that info about you. Anyway, she’s the one who told me to go to the park tonight, so I guess we have her to thank for us finding each other.”

“I guess we do,” Lip says, stuffing pizza in her mouth to excuse her from saying anything else. She’s trying to keep her face neutral, but her mind is fucking spinning.  _ Haseul?  _ She’s been working behind Lip’s back this whole time? Against her? But why, then? Why try and keep her from getting caught and then expose her identity? Why tell her to lay low and then lead Yves right to her? 

Except she knows why. Haseul has never approved of this, Lip’s obsession with Yves. It complicates things for her and the organization, and it’s evident that Haseul wants Yves gone so Lip can go back to being a good little lackey. Now, she’s trying to get Lip to do her dirty work for her, trying to ruin Yves for her in the hopes that Lip will grow disillusioned and kill her. Little does Haseul know, though, that Lip couldn’t hurt Yves if she tried.

“Lip?” Yves calls timidly, pulling Lip out of her deep thoughts.

Lip shakes her head to clear them. “Sorry. I was just thinking about … all this.”

Yves nods understandingly. “I know. It’s hard. I just hope it all dies down soon, I really do. It’s not like we’re getting anywhere. We’re only flying out here because we’re desperate.”

“Really?” Lip says, quirking an eyebrow. Of course, she should have known that Haseul was lying about there being a countrywide manhunt for her. “Do you want that to happen? For the case to just go cold?”

Yves shrugs, picking apart her pizza crust. “I don’t know? I’d be out of a job, which would suck, but … that’s not really why I started working on your case. I guess I just wanted to understand you, and I think I’m getting there.”

Lip bites her lip, not knowing how to deal with this strange feeling like her heart is rising out of her chest. “No one’s ever been able to,” she whispers. 

“Cause no one’s ever tried,” Yves says, reaching for Lip’s hand and squeezing it. “I’m trying.”

Lip nods, not trusting herself, and kisses Yves to stop herself from starting to cry again. Thankfully, Yves doesn’t press the matter, just kisses her back and wraps her up in her warmth and holds her till she falls into a peaceful sleep.

* * *

When Yves doesn’t come home for the night, Haseul preemptively celebrates with a glass of champagne from room service. She assumes everything is going according to plan and that Yves is facedown in a ditch somewhere. Unfortunately, the next morning she gets a very rude awakening: Yves trying to sneak back into the hotel room at almost six in the morning.

“Yves?” Haseul asks, cracking one eye open. “What the hell?”

“Sorry! I ran into a friend last night and ended up staying there,” Yves says quickly, shutting the door behind her. She dashes into the shower, but not before Haseul analyzes her appearance: messy hair, same clothes as the night before, and her neck littered with hickeys. Haseul frowns deeply, sinking back into her pillow. So things definitely did  _ not _ go according to plan, then.

Nonetheless, she has a backup plan. After Yves has showered (and attempted to hide proof of last night with a turtleneck), they head off together to the detention center where Lip allegedly died. As expected, though, they’re not able to get much information that wasn’t already in the file; the only thing of interest they learn is that Lip ‘died’ in a fire.

“So she easily could have smuggled someone else in and their remains would be unidentifiable because of the fire damage,” Yves sighs as they walk out of the building. “We still have no idea where she went afterwards. Or where she is now.”

“Hm,” Haseul says neutrally, thinking it’s kind of funny how they both actually do know where she is now and are hiding it from one another. “There’s one last stop we can make.”

Haseul leads them to a small, unassuming apartment building where they have to climb several flights of stairs. Yves is still trying to catch her breath when Haseul knocks and the door opens to reveal a short, auburn-haired woman looking curiously at them.

“Kim Jiwoo?” Haseul asks, and Yves’ breath catches in her throat again. So  _ this  _ is Kim Jiwoo. 

“Yes?” Jiwoo asks, looking back and forth between them.

Haseul pulls out her badge. “We’re international law enforcement. We’d like to talk to you about Kim Jungeun.”

Jiwoo’s expression changes from mild curiosity to cagey, fearful distrust, and she tries to close the door. Yves is too fast for her, though, sticking a foot out to stop it abruptly.

“What is there to talk about?” Jiwoo hisses, still holding onto the door for dear life. “She’s dead.”

“No, she’s not,” Haseul says gently. “I know this must be a shock, but she faked her death. She’s still out there, and we’re trying to find her.”

Jiwoo shakes her head slowly. “You’re kidding,” she says faintly, but the serious looks on their faces tells her that they very much aren’t. Rubbing her temple, Jiwoo opens the door wider. “Alright. Come in.”

Yves can’t stop staring at Jiwoo as they enter her modest home and sit together in the living room. This is the girl Lip was in love with, so much that she would literally kill to be with her. Yves knows it’s fucked up, but she’s almost jealous. What about her is so special? And when faced with the choice between Lip and some dude, she didn’t choose Lip?  _ She doesn’t know how lucky she was _ , Yves thinks sourly.  _ I wish someone would love me that much. _

She’s stirred from her disturbing thoughts by the troubled sigh Jiwoo lets out. “So… what do you want to talk about? Where is she?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Haseul says, flipping open a notebook from her back pocket. “Is there anything you can tell us about her that could help? Anything you might know that we don’t?”

Jiwoo’s already shaking her head before Haseul is done speaking. “I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” she says. “I didn’t know her at all. Nobody did. She’s completely unpredictable, a pathological liar. A cold blooded killer. That’s the only thing I know for sure.”

Yves can’t help but interject, “you didn’t know her at  _ all _ ? You were friends with her for so long. She loved you—”

Jiwoo’s head snaps round to look at Yves with a look so fierce it makes her fall silent. “She never loved me,” Jiwoo chokes out. “She’s incapable of love. She just wanted to own me, wanted me all to herself, and when she couldn’t have that she tried to ruin everything I love. She  _ never  _ loved me. She doesn’t know what the word means.” She takes a deep, shaky breath, wiping the wetness from her eyes. “I think you should leave now.”

“Of course,” Haseul says demurely, standing up and motioning for Yves to follow. They leave and walk back to their hotel in complete silence. Yves seems entirely absorbed in her own thoughts, her brow slightly furrowed and a small frown on her face. Haseul celebrates internally, believing that her cautionary tale worked and that Yves is coming to her senses about the reality of her relationship with Yves.

Unbeknownst to Haseul, her plan has only had the entirely opposite effect. Yves only resents Jiwoo more for what she’s done to Lip, the way she broke her heart and betrayed her trust.  _ The problem isn’t that she couldn’t love you _ , she thinks bitterly,  _ it’s that you couldn’t love her back. But I can. I think I can. _

She thinks back to that fated first meeting of theirs, how Lip’s eyes burned into hers as they touched for the first time.  _ I don’t want to hurt you, _ she had said.  _ Do you trust me? _

_ Yes _ , Yves thinks to herself, dazed with affection for this broken, beautiful girl.  _ I do.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :00 just 1 chapter left! thank u sm to everyone whos been reading and commenting <33 i rewrote this like 3 times so i hope the final product is ok!! <3


	5. and i love you so much i'm gonna let you (kill me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well here we are at the end of this fic!!! i really loved writing this so tysm for reading and making it this far <3  
warning for minor character death in this chapter!

**PARIS**

Haseul drags her feet as she walks up the steps to her front door, dragging her suitcase behind her. The flight back from Seoul was fucking brutal, just the cherry on top of the shit sundae that was this trip. She was hoping —  _ counting  _ on Lip killing Yves when she found out how much she knew about her past, but that didn’t happen. That alarms her because it makes her think that maybe this  _ isn’t  _ just a passing obsession for Lip. Maybe she actually … cares for Yves.

No matter, though. If Haseul has to kill Yves herself, then so be it. This has gone on for far too long and she’s going to take matters into her own hands. It'll have to be tomorrow , though. Right now she just wants to sleep.

When she enters the foyer, her eyes adjust to the darkness quite quickly and she can spot a figure sitting on the couch in the living room. Fondly, she assumes it’s Yeojin waiting up to greet her, and she flicks the light on. Instead she comes face to face with Lip, her hair dyed a brand new shade of pitch black and her eyes just as dark. Haseul feels dread curl in her stomach; something about Lip’s stony expression tells her that this isn’t a social call.

“Where’s Yeojin?” she asks quietly, shutting the door with her foot. 

“Sleeping,” Lip says, and makes a  _ hush  _ gesture with her finger. Haseul chooses to believe her, for her own sanity, and cautiously goes to sit beside Lip where she’s patting the sofa cushion.

“Did you have a nice flight?” Lip asks. Haseul hesitates, not knowing what Lip's getting at; her impassive expression gives away nothing.

“It was fine,” Haseul replies. “How did you kn—”

“You know,” Lip interrupts, “the strangest thing happened. I saw Yves in Seoul, that night you told me to go to the park.”

Haseul blinks. “You did?” she asks carefully.

“Mmm. Strange, right? I would have thought she’d be in London, what with that big investigation about me and everything,” Lip continues, and Haseul’s stomach sinks more and more with every word. “Anyway, she told me something quite interesting. Apparently the reason she was in the park that night is cause someone recommended it to her, too. Crazy, right? And this person just happens to be a ‘government official’ who swooped in on their case out of the blue a while back and has been working with them ever since.”

Haseul pretty much knows she’s done for, but still, she just shrugs, choosing to deflect until she can't anymore. “Okay?”

Lip stares at her, hard. “Don’t play fucking dumb,” she hisses. “I know it’s you, Haseul. You’re lucky I didn’t tell her who you  _ really  _ were right then and there.”

“So why didn’t you?” Haseul challenges, trying to appear less uneasy than she actually is.

“Because I wanted to talk to you first,” Lip says, eerily calm. “I just don’t understand, Haseul. Why the hell would you be working against me? Against  _ yourself _ ?”

“Of course I wasn’t actually working against you, Lip,” Haseul reasons. “I was infiltrating their investigation because it worried me how much progress they were making. I just wanted to keep an eye on it from the inside.”

“And somehow providing them with all the details of my past and literally leading them to my birth town was ‘keeping an eye on it’?” Lip snaps, anger starting to seep into her voice. 

_ Fuck.  _ So Yves told her about that. “It started out like that,” Haseul says, “but it just became clear to me how blinded you are by this girl, Lip. You didn’t care how close she was getting, how dangerous this is for you. And look — even after she found out everything about you, and I mean  _ everything _ , you still let her go. This isn’t like you, Lip.”

Lip slams her fist down on the table, the sudden sound making Haseul jump. “You don’t know me, Haseul!” she snarls. “You don’t know a fucking thing. I don’t care that she knows, Haseul, because for the first time in my life someone saw me for who I really am and they didn’t run away. She loves me, and I love her too. Nothing you do can change that, so you might as well stop with these little games already.”

Haseul looks at Lip in disbelief.  _ She’s finally lost it _ , she thinks to herself. It’s evident that Lip is too far gone to think rationally anymore, which was something she was barely capable of in the first place. Haseul needs to put an end to it, right now.

“I’m sorry, Lip, but this can’t continue,” she says calmly. “I’m going to kill Yves.”

Fury flashes in Lip’s eyes, white hot. “Like hell you are! I won’t let you lay a finger on her, I swear to God.”

“If it isn’t me, then it’ll just be someone else. This isn’t my decision, Lip, it’s the organization’s. She knows too much, and they want her gone.”

Lip’s face falls slightly, her chest rising erratically as she stares at Haseul. “You’re lying.”

Of course she is, but Haseul just shrugs. “Lip, I’m sorry, I really am, but you need to understand that this is for your own good.”

“I’ll kill you,” Lip whispers, but her voice is wobbly, her eyes wet. “I swear I will.”

“You can, if you want, but one way or another, somebody is going to be killing Yves,” Haseul says. “It’s over, Lip. It’s over.”

Lip’s mouth moves wordlessly, trying to find a response, but then her face just crumples and she buries her head in her hands. “Fuck,” she half-whispers, half-sobs. “I just… fuck, Haseul. How did it come to this?”

Despite herself, Haseul actually feels sorry for Lip. She’s never seen her like this, curled in on herself like a wounded animal, tears streaming down her face. “I don’t know, Lip,” she says sadly. “I really don’t.”

Lip rubs at her eyes roughly. “I’m so stupid. I let myself fall for her, and now she…” her lip wobbles again and then she throws herself hard at Haseul, almost knocking her backwards. Haseul thinks for a moment she’s attacking her, but she realizes with a small twinge of remorse that she’s only hugging her, wrapping her arms tight around Haseul’s middle.

Haseul hugs her back firmly, as if it’ll ease the guilt she feels. “It’s going to be okay, Lippie,” she soothes, patting her head. “It’s going t…”

Her sentence trails off into a strained gasp when she suddenly feels a horrible, searing pain right below her left shoulderblade. She tries to pull back, confused and hurting so badly her head is pounding, but Lip holds her in place with surprising strength, looking her dead in the eyes.

“How does it feel to be stabbed in the back?” Lip whispers with a hint of a crazed smile on her lips, and she twists the knife, plunging it deeper.

Haseul groans brokenly, tears spilling down her face without her even realizing. “You fucking bitch,” she gurgles, blood bubbling in her throat and spilling down her lips.

Lip grins, wide and awful. “I learned from the best.”

Haseul’s vision is beginning to go white at the edges, and she knows she doesn’t have much longer left. She wants to cry, thinking about what Yeojin is going to do without her, but she forces those thoughts down. She can’t let Lip win. So instead she laughs, hoarse and pained, blood spattering onto Lip’s face.

Lip’s mouth twists into a sneer. “What’s so fucking funny?” 

Summoning all the strength she has left, Haseul slips her phone out of her back pocket and inputs the secret code she’d programmed into it, just in case something like this happened. It's her worst nightmare, and she was hoping it would never come to this, but now she’s glad she’s prepared. 

Lip snatches the phone out of her hand. “What the fuck was that?” she demands, but Haseul’s breathing has turned sluggish and she’s staring at a spot on the wall beyond Lip.

“Mom?” she breathes, in a tone so hopefully childlike that it almost makes Lip feel bad for her. “Mom, I’m sorry. I… I tried.”

Then her eyes glaze over and her head drops forward onto Lip’s shoulder, letting out her last, strained breath. 

Lip screams in frustration, yanking the knife out and shoving Haseul’s body off of her. She picks up the phone again, the screen now smeared with blood, and she wipes it off impatiently on the already-bloodstained couch cushions. Once she sees what’s on the screen, she drops it again, ice water spreading through her veins.  _ Fucking bitch.  _ Even in death, Haseul is fucking up her life.

Although she’d planned on disposing of Haseul’s body — despite her threats, she actually likes Yeojin and didn’t want her to have to see this — but there’s no time for that right now. She barely has the presence of mind to wash the blood from her face and hands before dashing out of the house, panic filling her lungs. She has to get to London. She has to get to Yves.

  
  


**L O N D O N**

Yves whistles as she walks to work, cheerful despite the chilly weather. Right now, her mind feels clearer than it has since this entire investigation started. At first she was sure she wouldn’t stop until they captured Lip, but now she realizes that was never her goal in the first place. She just wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery, unwrap all Lip’s layers and see what’s inside. Now that she’s achieved that, she feels at peace. In fact, she’s happy that she and Haseul’s trip to Seoul was unfruitful. Now she can just sit back and let the investigation die out as it’s been doing for quite some time now, and then …

Then what? That’s the part she hasn’t quite figured out yet. They hadn’t made any plans to see each other after Yves left Lip’s house, and with no way for Yves to contact her, she has no idea when she’ll see her again. One thing she does know for sure, though, is that she  _ will  _ see her again. The investigation might be all but over, but the story of her and Lip is only just beginning, she thinks. It’s funny that, despite Lip’s extreme unpredictability, she’s the only thing Yves can concretely see in her future.

She takes the fire escape steps two at a time, excited to see Vivi and Olivia again. To her surprise, she’s missed them quite a lot; she supposes they’re not only her colleagues but some of her only friends right now, so she’s glad she’s back to see them now. 

“Hey, guys!” she greets cheerily, walking in through the back door and stomping the snow off her boots before properly entering. “Gosh, I didn’t miss this weather, let me tell you that.”

Neither of them respond, and Yves looks up curiously. They’re sitting side by side in front of Olivia’s computer, although all the monitors are blank, and they’re looking at her with a strange expression. “Is there something on my face?” she asks jokingly, but it doesn’t break the tension.

“Welcome back, Yves,” Vivi says. “Take a seat, please.”

Yves does so, a slight frown coming across her face. “What’s the matter? And wait, where’s Haseul? Isn’t she supposed to be here?”

“She didn’t show up. Hasn’t been answering our calls,” Olivia says. “She did send us something, though.” She says this with a sharp, pointed look in Yves’ direction, and her uneasy feeling only deepens.

“What is it?” Yves asks.

The two girls exchange a glance, but don’t reply. “Tell us how Seoul went, first,” Vivi prompts.

“Um. Okay.” Yves crosses and uncrosses her legs. “It went fine, I guess. We didn’t get anything from the detention center, and the school’s long closed down. We met with her childhood friend — Kim Jiwoo — but she wasn’t willing to speak to us. So I guess we’re pretty much in the same position as before we went.”

“So that’s it? There’s nothing else you want to tell us?” Olivia asks, her tone cold, and Yves’ stomach flips.  _ It’s not that. Right? It can't be that. They don't know. _

“No?” she says, trying to sound confident.

“Right. So what about this?” Olivia snaps, pressing a button on the keyboard. All the monitor displays light up at the same time, each of them displaying a candid photo that together form a story: Yves standing alone by the fountain; Yves looking up, her eyes shining with recognition; her running forward, looking determined; her throwing herself into the arms of a stranger in a red coat; then, clear as day, her and Lip in their passionate embrace. Their arms are wrapped around each other, their bodies pressed close, and they look every bit the reunited couple.

Yves feels like all the air is sucked out of the room; suddenly she can’t breathe, and she’s glad she’s already sitting down, otherwise her knees would definitely have buckled. She can’t bring herself to meet their gazes, already knowing she can’t bear the disgusted, judgmental looks, and she can’t bring herself to look at the computers either, to see her betrayal splayed across the screens.

“Oh, and that’s not all,” Vivi says coolly, pressing another button. Even though Yves’ gaze is fixed firmly on the floor, she can’t ignore the sound that comes flooding from the speakers: the voice that would usually make her feel excited, now prompting nothing but dread and horror.

_ Well, I just wanted to hear your voice again. Of course, it’s not the same as having that pretty body underneath me, but I’ll settle for what I can. _

“It’s not what it looks like,” is all Yves can think to say, her voice quavering, but Olivia lashes back with a rage Yves has never seen from the girl before.

“Are you fucking serious, Yves? We literally have you on tape. On  _ camera _ . How long has this been going on, huh? Since the very beginning? Is that why she left you to live in that hospital? And again in the nightclub?”

“No, of course not,” Yves cries, feeling hot tears spill down her cheeks. “I had no idea who she was before this investigation happened. I’d never even spoken to her before that night she came to my house…”

“And we’re supposed to believe you?” Vivi asks in disbelief. “God, I can’t believe how naive I was. All my MI6 connects pointed out the red flags, but I stood up for you because… because you made me think I knew you. You’re just like her, aren’t you?”

“Stop, please,” Yves sobs, burying her face in her hands. “I never meant to get caught up in all of this, you have to believe me.”

“We don’t,” Olivia says with a shrug, getting up from her desk. “And even if we did: best case, you’ve been knowingly obstructing evidence from this investigation for months. I’m sorry, Yves, but this is beyond our hands now.”

Olivia walks across the room as she speaks, opening the front door — the one connected to the storefront that they never use — to reveal two tall, stony-faced men in suits.They make their way swiftly to Yves, pinning her arms behind her back and cuffing her wrists so quickly that she doesn’t have time to resist. Once the cold metal clicks into place, though, reality kicks in.

“No, please! You can’t do this, you can't— you have it all wrong!” Yves cries frantically as the men hustle her out of the room, her kicking and straining barely slowing them down. She looks over her shoulder, one last desperate attempt to call out to Vivi and Olivia, but they’re not looking at her, their eyes averted to the floor. The door closes, and it’s the last Yves sees of her former friends.

Yves is almost expecting them to take her to jail, but the reality is almost worse: they escort her to a questioning room in the MI6 building, the place where she used to work. She’s marched down the hallways in handcuffs like a criminal — which she supposes she is, now — and although she tries not to, it’s impossible not to look at the bystanders who watch her get dragged away.

Some of them just look curious, and she can’t blame them. God knows she would have watched, too; anything for some gossip in this dry work environment. The majority, though, they already know Yves, either through working with her or through the news of Doyoung’s death, and the looks on their faces are so much worse than innocent curiosity. Disgust, shock, disdain, judgment. Eventually she just closes her eyes, allowing herself some relative peace before she’s thrown into a chair, cuffed to a table, and the questioning begins.

To her credit, Yves really does tell them all she knows. As she recounts the story to them, she realizes that there isn’t  _ that  _ much she can tell them that they don’t already know. Even though she’s telling the complete truth for once, she can see it doesn’t even matter, because the two hard-faced men interviewing her clearly don’t believe a word she says. Yves can already tell they’ve stamped her guilty in their heads and nothing she can say can change that, so about half an hour into the futile questioning she just stops talking. She just rests her head on the table, ignoring their yelling and threatening as best as she can. She’s so fucking tired.

It could have been minutes or it could have been hours before Yves finally hears a sound apart from the investigators drilling her: the door being opened. She sits up and watches as an older woman marches into the room, dressed in a garish pink pencil-skirt suit with huge matching glasses and topped off with a beehive hairdo. 

“Not another word, dear,” she orders to Yves, before pulling a badge out of her oversized handbag and flashing it at the men. “Angeline Lee, public defence. I’ve been assigned to this client, and she won’t be speaking to you until she’s spoken to me.”

The shorter of the men laughs. “Good luck with this one, ma’am. Your client is guilty.”

“Is she, now?” Angeline asks, propping a hand on her hip. “Because the only evidence you have against her came from Jo Haseul, who was just discovered dead in her apartment and revealed to have been part of a highly illegal assassin organization — in fact, she was directly working with the killer my client has been charged with liaising with. So good luck having that stand up in a court of law. Now, kindly uncuff my client and leave so I can speak to her in private.”

The investigators exchange stunned looks, their smiles having been wiped off their faces the longer that Angeline talked, and then slowly rise from the table and leave the room after unlocking Yves’ handcuffs. Yves’ own head is spinning, trying to process all this information. She supposes it makes sense — the weird vibe she got from Haseul, how she got so much info about Lip, hell, she’d driven Yves directly into Lip’s arms in Seoul — but still, it’s a lot to take in. All she knows is that the woman seating herself across the table from her may have well been an angel sent straight from heaven.

“Thank you so much,” Yves says gratefully. Angeline doesn’t respond, simply smiles and takes off her cat-eyed glasses, looking straight at Yves. 

Yves can’t help but gasp as she recognizes those deep brown eyes. The disguise is incredible, down to the makeup and accent and what seems to be a prosthetic nose, but there’s no way Yves wouldn’t recognize that gaze. 

“Are there mics in here?” Lip asks, hushed.

Yves shakes her head. “No recording devices allowed in the building. Too much sensitive information around… How are you even here?!”

“Never mind that,” Lip sighs, folding her arms across the table. “Listen, I can get you out of here today, they can’t keep you here with that compromised evidence. But they’re definitely still going to want to take this to court, and I know I said their case wouldn’t hold up, but … it's not looking good, Yves.”

“I don’t wanna go to jail,” Yves says, barely above a whisper, and Lip must see how scared she looks because her face softens and she reaches across the table to clasp Yves’ hand.

“You won’t,” she says firmly. “Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to take you home, and you’ll get a good night’s rest. By the morning, I can have fake passports for the both of us and a first-class flight to take us out of here.”

Yves wants to say a million things to that, but what ends up coming out is, “where?”

“Somewhere far,” Lip says, squeezing Yves’ hand. “Somewhere remote. We’ll leave everyone and everything behind. I have enough money that we both won’t ever have to lift a finger again, even if we both live to a hundred years old. It’ll just be me and you, sipping margaritas on the beach. And we’ll be together. We’ll have each other.”

Yves shakes her head, dazed. “I can’t, Lip. I can’t leave everything behind…”

“What is everything, exactly?” Lip scoffs, her soft expression changing. “You’re out of a job, and if you don’t go to jail — which is a very flimsy  _ if  _ — there’s no way you’ll ever be hired in your field again. You have no siblings, you don’t speak to your homophobic parents, and you just lost the trust of your two only friends. Oh, wait, there’s that blonde who works here. But I’m sure word travels fast in these halls, and I doubt she’ll want to speak to you when she finds out why you’re here. So tell me, Yves, what would you be leaving behind?”

Yves is speechless, feeling tears brimming in her eyes. When Lip lays it out like that, it makes Yves realize how truly empty her life is. She has nothing and nobody left, except for Lip. Then again, Lip is a highly manipulative person, and no doubt she wants Yves to feel like this. She pulls her hand away to wipe roughly at her eyes, but Lip pulls it back, clasping it between both of her hands.

“Yves, trust me,” she says, her voice soft and honeyed.

“How do you know about my parents?” Yves says, mostly to stall.

“I know a lot about you,” Lip counters. “And not just stuff I can find online or from private investigators. I know how you look when you smile for real, with those cute bunny teeth, and how peaceful you look when you sleep, and how you shiver when I kiss your neck. And you know me, Yves, better than anybody ever has. You’re the only person who’s ever made me feel loved, and I just want to be with you every day.”

Yves’ heart jumps at the mention of _that_ word. They haven’t said it to each other, but they don’t really need to. She knows what she feels for Lip. Only love could be so blind.

“You say you want to, but  _ could _ you?” she asks, meeting Lip’s eyes. “The life you lead right now is full of excitement and danger. Could you really sacrifice all that for me?”

“I would do anything for you,” Lip responds, so immediately Yves knows she didn’t even have to think about the words before she said them. “Nothing in my life right now is as exciting as you, Yves. Nothing makes me feel like you do. It wouldn’t be a sacrifice, my darling, it would be the exact opposite.”

Yves looks away, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks. “But … your job. They’ll kill you if you try to leave, you said so yourself.”

“They’d kill me for Haseul’s death, anyway,” Lip points out. “Besides, I never would have taken this job if I didn’t have an escape plan, silly girl. I know how to disappear so that they’ll never find me. They’ll never find  _ us _ .” Yves hesitates, biting her lip, and Lip pushes on: “stop trying to come up with reasons why we shouldn’t do it, because there aren’t any.”

Yves puts her head in her hands, completely overwhelmed by everything. She doesn’t know what to think, except a naggling voice telling her that despite everything they’ve been through, she doesn’t know if she can fully trust Lip. 

So she asks her the question that’s been on her mind since Lip came in: “So you really did kill Haseul?”

Lip hesitates, but only for a moment. “Yes, I did. It was to protect you, and I’d do it a hundred times over again.  _ You  _ are the most important thing to me, more than Haseul or the job or anything else. I wouldn’t let anything hurt you.”

It’s fucked up, Yves knows, but she can’t help the warmth that blossoms in her heart. The answer may not have been a  _ good  _ one, but it was completely honest, which is something she never could have said for Lip when they first met. The fact that Lip would literally kill for her … well, that’s romantic in a sick way, isn’t it?

“I’ll think about it,” she allows, and Lip smiles wide, squeezing her hand in excitement.

“Thank you,” she says, voice filled with relief. “You’ll have to make a decision fairly quick — they’re probably going to get that court order out in a couple days, and then you won’t be able to leave the country. But I think you’ll make the right decision, cause at the end of the day you love me. Don’t you?”

It’s said with an air of assuredness, but Yves knows Lip well enough at this point to see the hidden glimmer of vulnerability deep in her eyes. Yves knows that she’s holding her breath waiting for the answer, knows that she’s probably never had so much riding on a single question in her life. Luckily for Lip, she doesn’t have to think twice before replying.

“I do,” she says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Lip says, the words entirely foreign on her tongue. “I’ve never said that to anyone. Never thought I could, but … I love you, Yves. It’s the one thing I know for certain.”

They exchange soft smiles, and Lip pats her hand once before letting it go and standing up. “Come on, let’s go. I’ll drive you home.”

“Maybe I should take the tube? It’ll be less conspicuous,” Yves says, and Lip nods.

“Smart girl,” Lip says, and the compliment makes Yves smile, even though that isn’t the real reason. She just wants —  _ needs  _ some time away from Lip. She knows that her feelings for her are clouding her judgment, and being near her only makes it worse. She needs a second to breathe.

Nobody looks their way twice as they walk down the halls of the MI6 building, but it doesn’t stop Yves’ heart from pounding the whole time. She’s literally walking side by side with the criminal everyone here has been trying to catch, and not a single person recognizes her. The beating only subsides when Lip drives off in her rented car and leaves Yves alone, and she decides to walk home instead of taking the tube. The sharp, cold air is helping to clear her head, and she could use the time to try and digest all the things that have happened today.

When Yves gets back home, the only thing she wants to do is lay down and go to sleep, but she knows she wouldn’t be able to if she tried. There’s just far too much weighing on her mind right now. It doesn’t seem like she has any options other than running away with Lip, but for some reason she just can’t wrap her head around it. She  _ wants  _ to, of course, but on a logical level she knows it isn’t smart. Then again, though, none of her actions thus far have been smart. She’s undoubtedly been letting her heart lead her instead of her head, and look where it’s gotten her.

Then again, though, even her head is also filled with Lip. It’s impossible to be smart, to be rational, when she feels the way she feels. It’s an all-encompassing feeling, this burning love she has for the killer, and it defies all logic. And even now, in the middle of the biggest mess she’s ever been in, she still can’t bring herself to regret it. Looking at her life before she met Lip, it’s like a long, gray stretch of nothingness compared to how alive Lip makes her feel. It’s like everything exploded into color when Lip stepped into her life, and she doesn’t think she can go back to black and white.

Above everything, she’s so  _ tired _ . She’s tired and scared and lonely, and she really needs somebody who isn’t Lip to talk to her. So she calls the only person who still might care about her.

“Hey, girl!” Jinsol’s cheery voice greets her, making tears come to Yves’ eyes. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has … listen, did you hear about what happened at MI6 today?”

“Oh, no, I actually quit that job a couple of weeks ago,” Jinsol says, and Yves doesn’t think she’s ever been so relieved to hear something in her life. “Damn, it really has been a while if you don’t know that.”

“Okay, I just … I just really need to talk to someone,” Yves says, unable to stop her voice from cracking at the end.

“Whoa, hey, what’s the matter? Should I come over?” Jinsol says, concern tinging her voice.

Yves knows she shouldn’t involve Jinsol in all this, but she really needs a friend right now, so she just whispers, “yes, please.”

“Okay, I’ll be there soon. And hey, it’s gonna be alright, okay?” Jinsol says before hanging up. Yves stares at the phone in her hand, thinking dryly,  _ I really don’t think it is. _

Jinsol must have rushed right over because she’s on Yves’ doorstep in less than half an hour. Yves makes her some tea and they make small talk in the kitchen for a few minutes before Jinsol gently says, “so, do you wanna talk about it?”

Yves nods, and with a deep, shaky breath, she starts telling Jinsol everything, starting at the top. At first it’s difficult to get the words out, to admit all her shameful secrets, but then it just starts all pouring out and she physically can’t stop. By the time she’s done, her cheeks are stained with tears and both of their mugs of tea have gone cold. Jinsol is completely speechless, just staring at Yves as if she’s grown a third head.

“Well, say something,” Yves eventually prompts when the silence becomes unbearable.

Jinsol exhales harshly, shaking her head. “I mean, shit. I know you had a thing for female killers, but really, Yves.”

Yves gives a teary laugh, then claps a hand over her mouth. “God, sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. I just … I really don’t know what to do, Jinsol. This is so fucked up."

“Well, here’s what you  _ shouldn’t  _ do: run away with her,” Jinsol says matter-of-factly, and even though Yves knew Jinsol was obviously going to say that, it still makes her frown.

“Well, I don’t want to rot in prison or spend the rest of my life bagging groceries because I have a criminal record,” Yves says, hugging herself defensively. “So what the hell else can I do?”

“Turn her in, duh,” Jinsol says. “She said she’d come for you tomorrow, right? Well, contact MI6 and say you’ll give her over in exchange for immunity.”

“Oh,” Yves says, because she hadn’t thought of that at all, but of course now it seems like the obvious option. “But— will that really work? Surely they won’t let me get off scot-free. I  _ was  _ involved with her, whether I like it or not.”

“I’m sure when they hear that she manipulated you into sleeping with her and then threatened to expose you if you went to the police, they’ll understand,” Jinsol says.

“That’s not what happened, though,” Yves protests.

“It’s your word against hers,” Jinsol points out. “Besides, they’ll be so happy to finally have her I’m sure they would have excused you if you’d been killing people right by her side. You might have been involved with her, yes, but she tricked you into it. This is your chance to absolve yourself.”

Yves wants to scream,  _ she’s not like that! She didn’t make me do anything, it was all my choice and I would have done it again because I love her!  _ But she knows Jinsol won’t understand. Nobody would, because nobody’s seen the real Lip like Yves has. It was foolish of her to expect Jinsol to be able to help her; nobody can at this point.

So she just says, “you’re right, Sol. I’ll turn her in when she comes tomorrow.”

Jinsol’s shoulders sag in relief. “Good,” she says firmly. “You may have fucked up, but you can still make it right. Right?”

“Right,” Yves echoes weakly.

“Do you want me to stay here tonight?” Jinsol says.

“No, that’s fine… I think you should leave now, actually. I have a lot of thinking to do,” she says, and Jinsol nods sympathetically, gathering her coat and rising off the couch.

“Call me tomorrow, okay?” she says when Yves opens the door, pulling her into a firm hug.

“Okay,” Yves lies, hugging her tight. When Jinsol pulls away, Yves tries to commit her gentle smile into memory, knowing that this is the last time she’ll ever see her best friend.

Once Jinsol leaves, the house falls into unnerving silence once again, so Yves puts on some loud music to distract her from her overthinking and begins to pack. She’s going to have to shove her entire life into a couple suitcases, which she thinks is going to be a difficult task, but when it comes down to it, she realizes her belongings are painfully bare. It’s too sad to think about, so instead she upends the suitcase and only packs the expensive clothes Lip had sent her before. She doesn’t want to bring anything else of her old life into the new one she’s about to begin.

Despite this, she thinks of calling her parents one last time. Even though she swore she’d never speak to them again, a vow she’s kept for the last ten years, she feels like she should. She knows she doesn’t owe them anything, but after tomorrow, she literally won’t ever be able to speak to them again, even if she wants to.

It’s this thought that has her punching their home number into their phone, a number she still knows by heart even though that place hasn’t been her home for a while now.

The phone rings for an agonizingly long time before a woman’s voice picks up. “Hello?”

Yves’ grip on the phone tightens. “Mom? Is that you? It’s me, Sooyoungie,” she says, the childish nickname slipping out.

There’s a brief pause, and then: “wrong number.” The phone goes dead, leaving Yves to stare at the blank screen in disbelief. She doesn’t know what’s worse, the idea that her parents would change their number and not tell her, or if that  _ was  _ her mom and she still wants nothing to do with Yves. Either way, it tells her what Lip already did: she literally has nobody left in her life that’ll support her no matter what.

_ It’s better this way _ , she tells herself, forcefully wiping away the tears that have crept down her face.  _ At least I couldn’t disappoint them yet again. _

**P A R I S**

Lip sits on the park bench, shivering and smoking a cigarette. It’s dark enough that there aren’t any families or couples hanging around anymore, which is good, but she can’t help but sigh when she sees how late it is. She’d barely been able to wrangle such a last minute flight in the first place, and she doubts she’s going to catch any sleep before having to catch the next plane, but it doesn’t matter. If one sleepless night means forever with Yves, she’ll gladly take it.

Her cigarette is knocked out of her hand as a woman in a trench coat sits beside her. “I thought I told you to quit that shit.”

“I kill people for a living and you’re worried about me smoking?” Lip says with a raised eyebrow.

“Let me specify: I thought I told you to quit that shit  _ around me _ . I couldn’t care less if you smoke your throat out, just don’t make smell it,” Hyunjin says matter-of-factly, like she does with everything.

Lip just sticks her tongue out, knocking shoulders with her friend. Hyunjin had been her go-to for forgery since she could remember, and while there was a time where Hyunjin’s bluntness made them butt heads, her take-no-shit attitude is what eventually made them friends.

“Here’s what you asked for,” Hyunjin says, handing her a thick manila envelope. Lip takes it gratefully, giving her back an envelope of her own, and they settle into their little routine of Lip checking the documents and Hyunjin checking the cash.

“They look great, as always,” Lip says, satisfied with the quality. 

“Nice tip, as always,” Hyunjin replies. “Hey, who’s that?” She points at the passport that Lip had her make for Yves.

“It’s complicated,” Lip sighs. “Short story, my girlfriend. I think.”

“Long story?” Hyunjin prompts.

“She’s a detective who was trying to capture me, we hooked up and kinda fell face-first into love, Haseul ratted her out and she got in trouble with the feds, I killed Haseul, now we’re both running away together,” Lip sums it up.

“Wait. You killed Haseul?”

“Is that the only part you got?” Lip asks dryly.

“No, it’s just I have a bet going with Heejin that she was gonna be the one to kill you. Damn.” Hyunjin clicks her tongue in disappointment.

“Nice to know you have so much faith in me,” Lip snorts. 

“It was a matter of odds, my friend. Okay, but you? In love?” Hyunjin raises her eyebrows. “She must be one hell of a girl.”

“She is,” Lip says, smiling faintly just at the thought of Yves.

“I have to ask, though,” Hyunjin says cautiously. “Knowing you for as long as I have, I know you’re the type to make split-second decisions, but you can’t go back on this one. If you’re gonna go into hiding from your boss, you need to stay hidden. Like, for good.”

“I know,” Lip says quietly. “Believe me, I know. I wasn’t planning on asking her to run away with me, I really wasn’t, but Hyunjin, when I found out she could get fifteen to life … I couldn’t even bear the thought of never seeing her again. Even fifteen years without her. God, even one. It may have been a fast decision, but I’ve never been so sure about anything.”

“Shit. So you’re seriously willing to give up your whole life for her,” Hyunjin says, sounding impressed. “You really do love her.”

“Don’t act so surprised,” Lip mutters, but it’s without malice. Honestly, she had never expected herself to ever be able to love anybody either, but there are a lot of preconceived notions she had about life before Yves. That’s one of the things she loves most about her — the way everything changed for Lip when she started to love her. The most important thing in her life used to be her own pleasure, plain and simple and hedonistic, but now she knows there’s nothing she wouldn’t give up to make Yves happy.

“Well, I wish you the best of luck,” Hyunjin says sincerely. “Hey, does this mean this is the last time you’ll be needing my services?”

“If everything goes according to plan, ideally,” Lip says.

“Then here. Keep this,” Hyunjin says, handing her back her cash. When Lip tries to protest, Hyunjin just puts a hand up. “Please, Lip, I insist. Consider it payment for a lifetime of memories.”

“That was extremely corny,” Lip snorts, but she can’t help but accept the hug that Hyunjin reaches out for.

“I should get back now,” Hyunjin says when they part. “And I’m guessing you have places to be, too, so I'll bid you goodbye."

“Heejin has no idea you’re even here, does she?” 

“She’s sound asleep and she’ll kill me if I’m not there when she wakes up at 6 for pilates.”

Lip laughs to herself as she watches her friend walk away, her figure receding until she completely disappears from Lip’s sight. Lip’s never been one for nostalgia, but Hyunjin is probably the only person she’ll really miss. There was Haseul too; Lip does feel sad about killing her, in some fucked up Stockholm syndrome way, but she knows she did what she had to do. 

She has to leave soon, start making her way back to the airport, but she takes a few minutes in the quiet night air to just sit and think. Although she's completely sure about her decision, it's still strange to think that the life she's known for so long is suddenly over. She always thought she'd go out with a bang, killed by her employers or gunned down in a high-speed chase. Even in her backup plan to fall off the face of the earth, she always thought she'd be escaping to the Bahamas to party herself to an early grave. The concept of starting over, that she could ever change as a person and live a life she's happy to live ... it's an idea so foreign to her she's never even bothered to really consider it. She always thought she'd die before changing her ways.

In a way, she thinks, it is a sort of death, and rebirth. She and Yves are both stepping into the unknown with only each other to hold on to. Everything else will be new, and strange, and Lip doubts it'll be a completely smooth road, but Yves is worth it. Yves is worth it all.

**L O N D O N**

Yves doesn’t even know when she falls asleep, but clearly she does, because she wakes up on the couch with sunlight pouring through the windows and a rapid knocking on the door. Her heart thunders, and her sleep-addled mind thinks it’s the police again, coming to take her away once and for all, but of course it isn’t. It’s just Lip, standing in her doorway as promised with a big smile on her face and two cups of coffee in her hands.

“Good morning, beautiful,” she says, giving Yves a peck and heading towards the kitchen. “I don’t know how you like your coffee, so I just brought it black.”

Even though Yves has all her things packed and ready to leave and never look back, it’s this sentence that suddenly sends her into a spiral of panic. 

“You don’t know how I like my coffee,” Yves says slowly, “but you want me to leave everything and run away with you? Oh my god, Lip, this is a horrible mistake. I can’t do this—”

She turns to leave — where to, she doesn’t know, just anywhere away from here — but Lip grabs her firmly by the wrist and makes her sit down at the kitchen table with her.

“Yves, breathe,” Lip instructs, and Yves forces herself to take several deep breaths. Once she’s done that, Lip continues to speak, her tone gentle. “I may not know your coffee order, but it’s not like I’ve had the chance to take you out for coffee, have I? Our relationship may not be conventional, sure, but that’s what I love about it. About  _ us _ . We have all the time in the world to get to know each other. Besides, I know your pizza order. That counts, right?”

Yves lets out a broken half-laugh, half-sob, and buries her face in her hands. “I’m just scared, Lip. I’m so scared.”

“Me too,” Lip says softly, and Yves lifts her head up in surprise. “I know, it doesn’t seem like it, but of course I am. I’m leaving everything behind too, you know. I’m going into this just as blind as you are. But if I know anything, it’s that we’re right together, and we belong together. Do you feel that way too?”

“Yes,” Yves sighs. It would make things much less complicated if she didn’t, but god help her, she does. 

“So come with me,” Lip says, handing her a plane ticket from her pocket.

“Fiji?” Yves asks, scanning the ticket.

“That’s just the first stop,” Lip says. “There’ll be a jet there ready to whisk us off to our own private island, but I thought we could unwind a little first, spend a couple days on the beach.”

“That sounds perfect,” Yves admits, staring at the piece of paper. 

“It will be,” Lip promises, standing up and extending her hand. “Come on, we have a plane to catch.”

This time, Yves doesn’t hesitate before putting her hand into Lip’s. 

If Lip’s surprised at how small Yves’ suitcases is, she doesn’t show it. In fact, she only has one bag herself. When Yves asks what’s in there, Lip opens it to reveal that it’s stuffed full of Kinder surprise eggs.

“They don’t sell these outside of the UK,” Lip admits shamefully, and it makes Yves laugh. Somehow, Lip finds a way to make her feel better with just her presence, and as they ride to the airport with their hands clasped in the backseat of the cab, Yves feels calm.

Of course, this feeling doesn’t last. Once they’re in the airport with their bags checked and twenty minutes left till boarding, it really sinks in that this is it. There’s no going back now, only going forward. Yves knows in her heart, in her bones, that she truly wants to be with Lip. Nothing sounds more appealing right now than escaping everything and starting over with the woman she loves, but one concern still lingers in the back of her mind.

“What if you get bored of me?” she whispers to Lip over the hustle and bustle of the busy airport. Lip just looks at her fondly, locking their fingers together.

“I could never get bored of you,” she assures her. “You are the least boring person in the world, I think. Every minute I spend with you makes me fall more and more in love with you, Yves. So to answer your question, you’ll never have to worry about that, because it’s not possible for me to be bored as long as you’re by my side. Are you sure you won’t get bored of  _ me _ , though?”

Yves laughs, her heart feeling full. “Well…” she teases, and Lip grins back at her, closing the distance between them with a sincere, loving kiss.

They’re transported back into reality with the metallic sound of a woman’s voice coming over the speaker: “Boarding for Gate 15 is now open.”

“That’s us,” Lip says, jumping out of her seat excitedly. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Yves says honestly.

Yves has been a little worried about Lip making it through customs without being noticed, but she’s relieved to see the lady stamp her (fake) passport without a second glance. It makes sense, she supposes; this case has been largely internal, so the general public would have no idea who Lip even is. When it’s her turn, though, the woman pauses and points at the passport, making Yves freeze in fear.

“My sister’s name is Suzanne,” the woman says, and at first Yves has no idea what she’s talking about over the panicked thundering in her ears, but then she follows the woman’s finger to where she’s pointing at Yves’ fake name on the passport.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Great name,” she says awkwardly, rushing to take the passport back and hurry through. Yves has been on many planes in her life, but she always hates this part, the rushing through the terminal, boarding the plane, trying to find her seat. It’s so hectic that she and Lip don’t have the chance to say a word to each other until they’re sitting side by side in their seats in first class, fully seatbelted and ready for takeoff.

“We made it,” Lip whispers, and she looks so joyful Yves can’t help but lean over and give her a kiss. 

“We made it,” she confirms, feeling contentedness wash over her. All the stress, the drama, the bullshit she’s been dealing with these past few months, it’s really all over now. And she owes it all to Lip; even if she’s the one who got her into this mess, she’s the one getting her out now, and taking her to a life she never could have dreamed of.

As always, Yves watches through the window as the plane leaves the ground. She loves watching the world beneath her grow smaller and smaller as the plane goes higher and higher, right up until they break through the ocean of clouds and there’s nothing to be seen but pure white. Just like that, Yves’ entire life is gone, left behind like a discarded lover. She feels sad, of course, her heart slightly heavy, but most of all she’s excited. Her future spreads ahead of her like a huge blank canvas, ready for her to color it however she likes.

“Yves,” Lip says gently, rousing her from her reverie. She looks over at the woman sitting beside her, and she’s overcome with emotions. She can’t believe her luck, that she and Lip managed to find each other. She’s never believed in the idea of soulmates, probably because she’d never experienced real love before, but now it’s impossible to believe in anything but the idea that she and Lip were meant to be, destined for each other despite all the circumstances pushing against them.

“Sooyoung,” she says, making a split decision. “Yves is the person I used to be. We’re starting over, right?”

“Right,” Lip confirms, smiling. “Nice to meet you, Sooyoung. I’m Jungeun.”

“Pleasure,” Sooyoung says with a laugh, accepting the handshake that Jungeun reaches out for. "Have we met?"

Jungeun pretends to think for a moment. "No, I don't think so. Why?"

"Oh, nothing, just ... you remind me of this girl I knew. This girl I loved, actually."

Jungeun's face softens. "Oh, yeah? What happened with her?"

"I guess we'll find out," Sooyoung says, reaching over the seatrest to intertwine their fingers. "Together?" Although she knows she's sure deep down, it still comes out as a question.

Jungeun brings up their linked hands to press gentle kisses to each of Sooyoung's knuckles, and then squeezes the girl's hand tightly in her own. "Together."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i physically could not do an unhappy ending. forgive me 

**Author's Note:**

> :D im very excited / nervous abt this fic so pls lmk what you think!  
[twt](http://twitter.com/bluejinsol) / [cc](http://curiouscat.me/oddeyejinsol)


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